The Korean Cultural Center Washington, D.C. (KCCDC) proudly presents K-Recollection, a new online group exhibition featuring a diversity of multidisciplinary works by twelve returning Korean artists who reflect on their cultural identity and a year of pandemic life, on view April 23 – July 9. The exhibition will also open with the release of a guided tour video on April 23, including an inside look at the physical exhibition space at the KCCDC and remarks from each of the artists about their work and creative evolution over the past year.

Featuring about 30 works in total ranging from paintings, sculptures, ceramics, and installations to digital video, K-Recollection investigates each artist’s cross-cultural identity while residing in the United States and their ongoing relationship with their Korean heritage. Artists also grapple with fundamental questions about life and social connection in the era of COVID-19, in some cases presenting art created pre-pandemic alongside new works from the past year. The exhibition and artists are further divided into three thematic sections based on stylistic approach and experiences: Assimilation: Cultural Identity, Variation: Tradition and Modernity, and Infinity: Transcendence of Time and Space. 

Variation: Tradition and Modernity features works by Stephanie S. Lee, Victoria Jang, Leeah Joo, and Julia Kwon. Lee’s contemporary paintings, inspired by the rich symbolism of traditional Korean folk art, depict human aspirations and desires that transcend time. Jang’s ceramic art expresses the idea of cultural hybridity based on her experiences interacting with diverse racial groups and environments as a Korean-American. Joo explores her cross-cultural practice by reinterpreting superficial elements of bojagi, the traditional Korean wrapping cloth, in her sumptuous oil paintings. Drawing inspiration from Korean patchwork bojagi, Kwon’s textile work aims to challenge others’ preconceptions on Asiatic femininity and discusses what it means to be a Korean American woman living in the U.S. today.

Stephanie S. Lee

Stephanie S. Lee was born in Korea and received her BFA and MS at Pratt Institute in the United States. Later, she studied traditional Korean FolkArt painting at Busan National University in Korea. She founded KoreanFolkArt.org and has been teaching and introducing Korean folk art, known as minhwa in New York and beyond. She is also running a nonprofit organization called The Garage Art Center to promote quality visual arts in the Queens community. She was awarded grants from the Queens Council on the Arts and the Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center and has participated in numerous exhibitions. 

Lee expresses the intrinsic aspirations and desires of humanity that transcend time by reinterpreting minhwa, the traditional, nature-oriented, aspirational Korean folk art popular during the Joseon Dynasty, with a modern perspective. While the objects in her paintings reveal materialism, she investigates the essential coexistence of the positive pursuit of happiness and human desires.

Stephanie S. Lee

Cabinet of Desire I

Color & gold pigment, ink on Korean mulberry paper, 37(H) x 25(W) x2(D) in (Each), 2016 

Beautiful Lady Smile, 아름다운 아가씨 웃어요

Natural mineral color pigment & ink on linen, 25(H) x 17(W) in (Each), 2020

Julia Kwon

Julia Kwon was born in the United States and received her MFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University and her BA in Studio Art at Georgetown University. She has participated in numerous exhibitions and residency programs including the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Chautauqua School of Art, Vermont Studio Center, and Textile Arts Center. Her work has recently become a part of the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Julia Kwon sews interpretative bojagi to comment on the objectification of Asiatic female bodies, challenge the notion of authenticity, and examine the complexities of constructing identity within the context of globalism, cultural hybridity, and intersectionality. She also explores community and personal relationship building through various collaborative projects.

Julia Kwon 

Unapologetically Asian

Korean silk, cotton, and elastic sewn in the format of face masks, 20 x 34 x 3 in, 2020-21

New Banners, Same Old Struggles

Safety pins on Korean silk, 40 x 22 x 3 in, 2018

Victoria Jang

Victoria Jang was born in the United States and received her BFA in 3D4M at the University of Washington and her MFA at California College of the Arts. She spent several years as the Association of Independent Colleges of Arts and Design Teaching Fellow at the Maryland Institute College of Arts in Baltimore. Jang received the Headlands Center for the Arts Fellowship, the Retired Professor’s Award from the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, and the Murphy Cadogan Contemporary Arts Award, and has participated in numerous exhibitions in the United States.  

Jang’s work embodies a complex cultural hybridization based on her own multicultural environment and experiences with immigrants of different races in the United States. Jang abstractly transforms Korean traditional symbols into her ceramics and reflects her own unique identity formed through cross-cultural assimilation. 

Victoria Jang

Intercontinental Migration 

Ceramic, gold luster, inlaid metal flakes and gold anodized aluminum, 14x23x12 in, 2017

Entangle

Ceramic and gold luster, 25x14x14 in, 2017

Untitled (Triboelectric E-ect  I and II)

Ceramic, 14 x 11 x 8 in, 12.5 x 11.5 x 7 in, 2021

Síle II

Ceramic, w/ stand 12.5 x 8.5 x 11.5 in, 2021

Síle I

Ceramic, w/ stand 17 x 12 x 8 in 2021

Leeah Joo

Leeah Joo was born in Korea and received her BFA in Painting and BA in Art History at Indiana University and her MFA in Painting at Yale School of Art. She has exhibited widely throughout the United States and Korea and has received grants from Pollock-Krasner, Puffin, and the George Sugarman Foundation.

Joo explores a wide range of subjects in her art, including history, culture, thought, and human life. By reinterpreting the superficial elements of the traditional Korean wrapping cloth known as bojagi, including its symbolic patterns, textures, and colors, and by utilizing traditionally Western painting methods and media such as oil, she visualizes her cross-cultural experiences from both East and West.

Leeah Joo

pojagi modest

Oil on canvas,24x24 in, 2018

pojagi seki 

Oil on canvas, 12x12 in (8 pieces), 2020