Junghwa Hong: "Veiled"

About

CB1 Gallery is pleased to present Junghwa Hong’s first solo exhibition, Veiled. Hong’s exhibition of paintings explores visual symbols of patriarchal customs that endeavor to hide or repress women’s identities. Like a collective self-portrait, Hong asserts and paints women’s presence, despite hegemonic masculinity’s systematic methods of subordination and suppression of women. The exhibition will be on view from April 14 through May 19, 2018. An opening reception for the artist will be held on Saturday, April 14, 2018, 4 – 7 p.m.

Junghwa Hong chose the burqa, a long, loose, enveloping outer garment that covers the entire female body, including the face, as a metaphor for various cultures’ coercive efforts to hide women’s identities, restrict their freedom, and reduce their capacities to see, hear, and have a voice. Multiple paintings of covered women leading daily lives filled with work, friends, resistance, and child rearing are both poignant and beautiful. A large painting of a ceremony from Hong’s native South Korean culture alludes to women’s mandated labor but excluded participation, and paintings of leaders of the #MeToo movements in South Korea and in the United States laud women uncovering, exposing, and resisting gender-based violence around the world.

Using our collective, public archive and media for source images of real though anonymous women covered by burqas, Hong’s paintings are direct and mostly unadorned. Painted in acrylic on canvas, though with traditional water-based techniques, Hong’s paint spreads and penetrates, like the whispered recognition of a shared but personal experience. Simultaneously delicate and strong, Hong’s focused, empathetic expressions reflect hidden, confident women, enduring and overcoming.

Junghwa Hong was born in Seoul, South Korea, and received her BFA from Hong Ik University in Seoul. She received her MFA from the Laguna College of Art + Design and lives and works in Irvine, CA. Veiled is Hong’s first solo exhibition.