Is There Any Place for Us?

About the exhibition

ThisWeekendRoom presents a two person exhibition by Moka Lee and Jiwon Choi, Is there any place for us?. The title of the exhibition is inspired by a novel, From the Zero Person’s Point of View (2019), written by Yoon Haeseo; which deals with experiences that belong to everyone through layering multiple views that individuals can relate to in contemporary society. From the images the artists gather, they draw a universal sentiment by staying close to the border between the subject and object. Moka Lee brings all that exists outside of everyday life onto the canvas. Lee performs labor intensive painting after selecting images from online or photographs taken by her acquaintances. When the painting is at the point of completion through fine brushstrokes, the final artwork is far from what the original image looked like. Instead, the facial expression under the fine layers of color is enough to transfer the subtle emotions; through this, Lee detects both the alienness and the effects of Déjà Vu. Jiwon Choi composes the frame with imaginative objet that have been smoothly polished. Although these figures don’t exist in real life, they come across more realistic than one would imagine; given that the images are reproduced on a two-dimensional support. Perhaps it is because the objet has a similar expression as human figures; small but piercing black pupils avoid eye contact with the audience, but it is definitely staring back at something, and red lips and flushed cheeks seem to d