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Sometimes, more is more. Painter Jiha Moon calls herself a “maximalist,” an artist who includes everything. Her work – usually ink and acrylic on Korean mulberry paper – references classical painted textiles, the mysteries of nature and weather, and modern cartoons.
Moon credits abstract expressionism as a strong influence, and also pop and folk art. It’s primarily “free-form mark making,” she says, but upon closer inspection the paint and ink become narrative and mythological – with nature motifs, peering eyes, and human and animal forms embedded among flourishes of color. “It’s a complicated experience,” she says.
Her paintings are largely about negotiation – between cultures, time periods, colors, and textures. “It looks like Asian work,” she says, “but there is [also] something Western about it, and something that exists between places.” In that, her art imitates her life. The Korean-born Moon has had the “outsider” experience several times, while living in Iowa, Georgia, and Washington, DC. “Every day, my life has a moving sense of identity,” she says. “Identity is always shifting.”
