Installation view
of 《Our Eyelids Are More Than a Layer》 ©GALLERY2GALLERY2 presents a solo exhibition 《Our Eyelids Are More Than a Layer》 by artist
Hyunsun Jeon, until July 19. This exhibition orbits multifaceted modes of
seeing and explores time as it overlaps, refracts, and fragments.
The exhibition unfolds as a layered
meditation on life, the world, and the surface of painting. Instead of
delivering fixed or categorical meanings, Jeon’s paintings unfold multilayered
possibilities, much like parallel universes. Just as the notion that eyelids
are more than a layer suggests, her canvases resist being flattened into a
single narrative or flow. They ripple and fuzz with stories that diverge,
overlap, and defy any singular scheme.
Installation view
of 《Our Eyelids Are More Than a Layer》 ©GALLERY2Jeon habitually juxtaposes figures,
geometric forms, objects, and patterns across broad expanses of the picture
plane. These images, dispersed across the surface, pulse with their own motion
and seek ways to coexist. Sometimes they collide, sometimes they slip past one
another, but always they negotiate space. Planes-as-parts continuously
encounter and jostle across the visual field. This dynamic sustains a sense of
wholeness that is always in flux.
For Jeon, painting begins by probing what
lies beyond a discrete and singular world and by imagining other possibilities
just out of sight. Her paintings cleave and extend boundaries in ever-shifting,
fluid ways. Within works where patterns and pixel structures intersect, all
objects emerge as signs that compose the scene from the margins rather than the
center. Long cylinders, reminiscent of monocular telescopes, double as
self-portraits and as gazes cast beyond the image. Canvases, panes of glass,
and frames become phantom portals that summon worlds outside the window.
Grid-based forms, echoing the physical
structure of painting, evoke the mechanics of weaving, the tactility of craft,
and the ghostly afterimage of digital interfaces. All of these elements remind
us that Jeon’s images are shaped by memory, the movement of hands, and the
shifting distance of the gaze.
Installation view
of 《Our Eyelids Are More Than a Layer》 ©GALLERY2This layered sensibility radiates outward
and animates the spatial dimension of Hyunsun Jeon’s exhibitions.
Fabric-covered columnar forms, separate from the paintings and scattered
throughout the exhibition space, greet visitors with a range of expressions.
Faces with eyes—open or lcosed—are caught mid-blink. The artist’s conjured
troup of hand-sewn dolls materialize flattened images as tactile presences.
These objects embody the flow that
traverses and links the realms of life and art, extending the planar logic of
the paintings into lived space. Meanwhile, paintings of cylinders, cones, and
cubes metaphorically ground her practice and offer glimpses into why she
continually returns to painting. Jeon’s works feature recurring forms and
structures. Each time, they are refracted through subtly different approaches
or juxtaposed with varied techniques. The works begin to mirror and correspond,
generating a sense of resonance and reflection.
Jeon’s narrative resists definitive
statements or conclusions. Instead, it dwells in minor narratives that refuse
to resolve, in open layers, and in the coexistence of overlap and
fragmentation. We stand before a single visual field, yet within it, we encounter
multiple branching worlds at once.
