Jeong Bo Young

Contemporary Korean artist Jeong Bo Young is one of those few artists who deal with the concept of space in her paintings. A sincere lineage of Edward Hopper style of light-play, Young walks this uncharted territory as she explores the relationship between the melodramatic romance of rays with architectural motifs. 

Born 1973 in South Korea, Young completed her Bachelors in Fine Art from Hongik University, Korea., where she later got her M.F.A and PhD too. Young has a unique artistic idiom that combines elements of photography, architecture and painting. Light plays a crucial role in her paintings. In fact, most of her works can be classified as visual reflections on the way light interacts with various rooms and constructs their identity. She is interested to explore the way light transforms architectural spaces and inanimate objects like furniture to give these a new dimension of existence and purpose altogether.

Young’s works are open-ended and can be interpreted at a metaphysical level. With the play of light and shadows in predominantly empty zones, her paintings narrate the almost absence of human agency in nature’s supreme scheme of things. These paintings could also be interpreted as an invisible gaze penetrating the unknown. Although rooms and myriad spaces are empty and muted, their life originates in an enigmatic chiaroscuro game. Who entered this room? Who are the inhabitants of this house? What are their background stories? Are they independent or utopian or dystopian?

Jeong Bo Young has held solo exhibitions at a range of venues across South Korea. Her works have been a part of group exhibitions both in South Korea and abroad and auctioned at commendable high prices.