Installation View
Opening Reception: March 14th, Wednesday 6~8 pm
Tuesday-Friday 10:30~20:00, Weekend and National holiday 10:30~19:00 / Closed on Monday
DOOSAN Gallery Seoul: 15, Jongno 33-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Korea
Tel. 02-708-5050
DOOSAN Gallery Seoul presents Brutal Skins, a solo exhibition by JangPa. The exhibition displays the artist’s new works, including Fluid Neon (2016) series from the artist’s solo exhibition X-Gurlesque held in DOOSAN Gallery New York in 2017, as well as a work from the Brutal Skins series produced in 2017.
Through paintings, video and installation works, JangPa explores beyond her own individual identity as a female and an observer of her surroundings, to experimenting with questions and perspectives on the boundary between male and female, and self and others. Beginning with questions on the possibility of genuine understanding and love for an other in the Lady-X series in 2015, JangPa’s works endeavor to break way from the existing perspective on femininity and inspire diverse approaches and attitudes as demonstrated in the works in her solo exhibition X-Gurlesque, held in DOOSAN Gallery New York in 2017, and Brutal Skins shown in DOOSAN Gallery Seoul in 2018.
The Lady-X series focuses on those who are considered abnormal in the society, and the relationship between such individuals and the artist herself. The paintings in the series explore the process of Lady-X, who has no fixed gender specificity, discovering its own gender identity. Through Lady-X, a dendrophilia who feels sexually aroused by trees, the works go beyond capturing female sexual desires and particular fetishes, to demonstrating the desires not for females as a subject of the male gaze but for the female gaze that responds to it. Lady-X series touches upon the fantasy and taboo surrounding the female sexual fantasy, and makes painterly explorations on the ‘female grotesque’ and the sensations of the female as the Other.
JangPa’s paintings in the X-Gurlesque series capture the complex perspectives on females as a subject and object of desire, by portraying the female body in a beautifully grotesque and monster-like form, liquified texture and provocative florescent colors. The ‘Gurlesque’ in X-Gurlesque is a word combining ‘New Grrly,’ ‘Grotesque,’ and ‘Burlesque,’ which means a literary satire on life, and signifies ‘an artist or poet who fulfills feminism through superficial and satirical writing.’ It was inspired by the poetry anthology Gurlesque: The New Grrly, Grotesque, Burlesque Poetics by the American feminist poet and writer Arielle Greenberg and Lara Glenum.
The grotesque, liquified and mutated female body presented from Lady-X to Brutal Skins series presented in this exhibition erupts with the oppressed female senses alienated from the male-oriented perspective and narrative, through provocative colors and dynamic brush strokes, therefore shedding light on questions and problems on the society’s typical outlook on femininity.
JangPa (b. 1981) received her M.F.A. in Painting from Seoul National University, where she received her B.F.A. in Painting and Aesthetics. She has held solo exhibitions at DOOSAN Gallery New York (2017, New York, NY, USA), SOMA Drawing Center (2016, Seoul, Korea), Makeshop Art Space (2015, Paju, Korea), Gallery Zandari (2015, Seoul, Korea), TV12 Gallery (2013, Seoul, Korea), OCI Museum of Art (2011, Seoul, Korea), and Alternative Space Hut (2009, Seoul, Korea). She has also participated in group exhibitions at venues that include Art Space Pool (2017, Seoul, Korea), Seoul Museum of Art (2015, Seoul, Korea), DOOSAN Gallery Seoul (2015, Seoul, Korea), OCI Museum of Art (2015, Seoul, Korea), Gallery Button (2015, Seoul, Korea), BMOCA (2015, Paju, Korea), DOOSAN Gallery Seoul (2014, Seoul, Korea), Common Center (2014, Seoul, Korea), and Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul Arts Center (2011, Seoul, Korea)