黑料不打烊

Harper鈥檚 is pleased to announce Quieter and Colder, New York-based artist Hyegyeong Choi鈥檚 second solo exhibition with the gallery. The presentation features new paintings by Choi and opens Friday, May 10, 6鈥�8pm, with a reception attended by the artist.

Choi, who was born and raised in Korea, traditionally paints shapely women who indulge in surreal environments. These striking figures subvert stifling conceptions of beauty as they rest their nude bodies amidst lush terrain and electric pools of water. But for Choi, water is not always a site of respite: the critical source of life has been a symbol of emotional turmoil for the artist who has survived the troubles of self-destruction. Across Quieter and Colder, Choi reckons with the plight of this psychological trauma across immersive figurative paintings. In these new works, intrepid protagonists overcome treacherous landscapes, embodying Choi鈥檚 odyssey through the afflictions of public perception and the tribulations of mental health.

The artist鈥檚 intimate relationship to mourning manifests in melancholic temporalities among the works that comprise Quieter and Colder. In the painting Hiding in My Studio, large women shake off profound blues as if coming alive again after an arduous slumber. They emerge from the depths of a pond surrounded by an esoteric cave. Exquisite flowers float along this introspective oasis, gesturing towards the ephemeral nature of life and the cycles of death and revival that provoke existence. As the women slowly awaken their senses to the enigmatic landscape, they bathe, catch fish, and paint with unbridled curiosity. Color plays a liberatory role here: at times, beaming orange light slices through the somber blue pigment, directing hope in this scene of rebirth. But as the eye wanders towards the background of the visual plane, we are swiftly displaced from the illusion of uninhibited freedom: a bevy of unassuming onlookers, camouflaging among the rocky walls of the catacomb, elicit the voyeuristic gaze of unwanted critique.

We witness the haunts of mental unease and corporeal restraint again in Excavation. Here, women sunbathe as they lie against scorched earth. Three figures bare their limbs to the sun, soaking in the blazing heat of the sizzling day. The bodies, much like the landscape, are shaded in warm tones: rich yellow and deep auburn conjure the dizzying stupor of an afternoon at the beach. But in this jarring scene, there is no sea to escape to. These women face undetermined fates instead as they sink into massive holes in the earth, threatening to destabilize their day of rest.