Jiyeon Ryu

About

As an interdisciplinary artist, Ryu is curious about how painting existed in between her imagination and the world. Often there is a sense that painting was an object of attention that described a journey into the elsewhere of life. Such journeying was in excess of living, discovering places beyond realms filled by counting and calculation.  With a scientific background shaping her analytical perspective, Ryu employs moving images to convey perceptions, sculptures to articulate symbols, and paintings to manifest aesthetic sensibilities. This convergence of mediums engages audiences on multiple levels, offering diverse entry points into exploring the profound and multifaceted nature of human meaning and expression.

Her recent work at RCA explores the lives of leprosy patients in South Korea. Based on their stories and imaginations, she delivers people’s memories and minds, questioning how our lives overlap through shared emotion among different timelines and spaces.

Ryu mainly described these battles in symbolic figures, ‘Flower people.’ Figures of the survivors are posed like those in Blake’s illustrations, transforming the islanders into mythological figures – hidden gods and goddesses seamlessly entwined with the resurgent nature, a testament to Sorokdo’s capacity to rise from the shadows and embrace a hopeful future to highlight their resilience against authoritarian power.

Her works were displayed at unique spaces from Safe house at East London and Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge.

Ryu is based in London and educated in South Korea and Sweden.