Hyunsun Jeon Untitled, 2024

Working in a medium that has traditionally thrived on creating the illusion of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface, Jeon’s work celebrates flatness. Her preferred medium, watercolor, achieves saturation and shallowness, maintaining a relatively thin layer of paint. Sometimes pierced by holes that open up views “into” the painting or superimposed fragments, Jeon finds ways to continuously remind the viewer of the planarity of the canvas, of looking at a flat surface, and of the actual thinness of the paint that supplies the illusion of depth.

Initially drawn to the mechanics of storytelling in folktales, mythology and religion, Jeon has sought a narration specific to the practice of painting. Inspired by the scenery surrounding the religious figures in altarpieces, Jeon forges a world in which the main character—the saints and sinners—are omitted. Instead shapes, strokes and colors, caught in the constant maelstrom of becoming, occupy it. Yet, while her art historical references to medieval altarpieces remain visible in the compositional structure, her aesthetic is grounded in the now. Jeon knowingly incorporates aspects of the digital world, in particular her generation’s familiarity with and visual socialization through early video games. To Jeon, her work is a translation into analog form of characteristics she associates with the digital. Her paintings don’t tell stories or depict situations but in making us question every shape, plane, and motif, they communicate the uncertainness of our existence.