Sunhee Kim Jung
The One: Work by Sunhee Kim Jung
The Forum & Passage Gallery
June 15th-August 18th, 2019
Exhibition Reception: June 22nd, 2019, 2-4PM
BIOGRAPHY
Sunhee Kim Jung is a Korean-born American Artist. She is known as a painter of lush landscapes that express provocative ideas, beliefs, and feelings about life and death, loss and rebirth.
Jung earned her BFA in painting from Corcoran College of Art & Design and her MFA in painting from American University in Washington DC. She is the Vice President of the US-Korea Arts Foundation in Washington D.C. whose mission as an organization is to introduce Korean culture and arts to America by working with the community, government, museums and international organizations.
Jung has been selected by the US Department of State’s Art in Embassy Program three times. Four of her paintings have shown at the American Embassy in Rangoon, Burma in 2016-2018. She had taken part in a four person exhibition at Artbox Gallery in Zurich, Switzerland in October 2018.
Jung was the President of the Korean American Artists Association – Washington Metropolitan Region from 2004 to 2006. She taught art as an adjunct professor at the Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, MD from 2007 to the present.
Recently, she had her 11th solo exhibition at Aurora Hills Community Center & Library in Arlington, VA after her 10th solo exhibition at Annapolis City Hall gallery on April-May, 2018. Jung’s paintings have been selected for numerous juried shows internationally, nationally and regionally.
Currently Jung is a directory member on the Han Mee Artists Association in Greater Washington area. Jung joined the board of directors at the Anne Arundel County Arts Council for a three year term. She is a member of Washington Project for the Arts, Washington DC and a member of Maryland Federation of Art, in Annapolis, MD
Her paintings have been featured WNAV radio, The Capital, The Gazette, The Tower Light, The Carroll County Times, Maryland Gazette, What’s up? Media, Washington Woman Magazine, WKTV, etc.
Art residencies include The Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, and residency program at Tong Lau Space in Hong Kong in summer 2018.
This summer, she will attend the Cuttyhunk Island artist residency workshop with Suzanne Brooker after which her solo exhibition: The One: Work by Sunghee Kim Jung will open in the Forum and Passage Gallery and run through August 19th, 2019.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Although my passion is art, my priority in life is to be a good human being that can contribute to this world with a positive impact. There are so many beautiful things in the world. Nature and wildlife are beautiful when all is in balance. Only when people break the rules, destruction of nature can take place causing pain and ugliness.
That is how I see the world and nature. We are creatures that share this world with other creatures and if either suffers, the other suffers as well. And as an artist, my contribution is through the action of art. I believe colors and forms of nature hold the power to heal.
Traveling is one of my favorite things, and after having been to many parts of the world, I became intrigued with the idea of the common desire to find oneS dream home. Each time, the cycle is similar: immigrating to your dream home, working hard to settle into your new environment, and trying to immerse and assimilate into new surroundings. Witnessing this many times gave me the opportunity to reflect on my own experience as a first generation immigrant in the same shoes.
The mouse you see in my painting is not welcomed by anyone nor liked very much. It symbolizes “immigrants” working hard and trying to overcome various socioeconomic challenges. The mouse is “afraid” and “weak” but is treated at the same time as a “character” with its own idiosyncratic feelings. It gets assimilated to nature and gets healed by nature just as we do.
CAMOUFLAGE SERIES
Some would argue that the United States of America fights for peace. While others have protested the US’s fighting. However, my paintings do not make a political statement. Instead they are about respect and honor for the men and women who put their lives in danger serving this nation. They are usually faceless until their lives are prematurely taken from us. They are our sons, daughters, dads, moms, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and friends. They are people of this nation just like us who dream of having a family, dream of watching their kids play little league baseball, dream of their little girls becoming ballerinas, dream of growing old together with their spouses…
These men and women are camouflaged in the battlefield to avoid physical danger and death but they often camouflage their human emotions as well. Those the emotions of anxiety and uncertainty for their future and the longing to be home with their loved ones. These emotions can appear as weaknesses in a field where only only the strong survive. They must camouflage these emotions with armor of bravery for the sake of their duty.
My “Camouflage” series is a salute to all those brave men and women of the military who have and will sacrifice themselves in the name of freedom so that we may live without fear. My paintings express my desire to protect, providing them with an extra layer of camouflage. Come home safe.
To learn more about Sunhee Kim Jung, visit her website at http://sunheekimjung.com/
You can follow her on Instagram at @sunheekjung