Jeong Woojae

Friedrichs Pontone is delighted to present Afterglow, an exhibition by Korean artist Jeong Woojae who invites us to experience a surreal situation, where a young girl’s constant companion is a tropical fish. A representational painter of great skill, he deploys hue, tone and texture with a discerning and accurate eye. The fish themselves are masterpieces of animated nature-study. Entirely convincing in their pictorial veracity, they glisten with sparkling iridescence and rich jewel-like color. Such images prompt ideas of fairy tale transformations, the universal stuff of folk tale and legend. The paintings illustrate a porous place, where avatars leak from one realm to another. What appears solid is undermined by contextual ambiguity. The girl wills a floating world into existence, a magical space for dreams and possible transformations.