Julia Jo's oil paintings, distinguished by a vibrant color palette, oscillate between the figurative and the abstract. Born in Seoul, South Korea and based in Brooklyn, New York, the artist spent her childhood and adolescence moving between her birth country and various places across the United States. Drawn from a deep, personal well of moments lost in translation, social miscues, and interpersonal distance, her works simultaneously reveal and conceal human forms and familiar objects. Jo has presented solo exhibitions at Jessica Silverman, San Francisco, CA; James Fuentes, Los Angeles, CA; Charles Moffett, New York, NY; and Ronchini Gallery, London, United Kingdom. Additionally, her works can be found in the permanent collections of the ICA Miami, FL; and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA.
Featuring a frenzied network of overlapping contours, With Newfound Strength stems from a recent body of work that embraces the chaos in life while expressing the full emotional potency of painting. Various characters can be found within the composition, nestled in fluid streaks of color that carry equal weight as the human subjects. Inspired by her own memories, Jo begins her creative process by sketching a largely figurative composition directly onto a canvas—a process that she refers to as "drawing in paint." The artist then adds on additional layers, until the final composition is elevated beyond her personal narrative to a higher plane of universal human emotion. For this limited edition series, the artist will use gouache to hand-embellish the prints by adding contrasting lines, accentuating both the sweeping brush strokes as well as figurative forms.
Julia Jo
With Newfound Strength, 2024
Archival Pigment Print
21 x 21 inches
Limited edition of 20 with 5AP + 1PP
Hand-embellished, signed and numbered by the artist
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