Inside the Art, Outside Ourselves is a series of workshops that each invite you to spend time reflecting on a specific artwork from our main exhibition, Celestial Bodies, curated by Neena Wang. Through guiding prompts and conversation, we encourage you to dig deeper into the work, think meaningfully about the ideas presented, and to respond with drawing or writing exercises. Artists to be featured include Marina Peng, Yiran Guo, and In Kyoung Chun.
This month, we’ll be looking at In Kyoung Chun’s work and talking about observing daily life, the ways we contort ourselves to fit in, and the need for maintaining optimism.
“In recent years, I have expanded my practice to include site-specific installations in addition to painting. Large scale installations and interactive public artworks allow me to experiment with the ‘idea’ of painting. While pushing the limitations of the canvas, the installations actively engage with viewers in the real world and offer them new ways to appreciate art.
As a painter, I always return to the studio to work on canvas or paper. Both the paintings and the multi-disciplinary installations explore my interest in the personal and historical aspects of daily life. As an immigrant from South Korea, my life in the United States has been fundamentally and drastically different. Like my arranging of simple forms, colors and marks on a canvas, I continually reshape my identity to ‘fit in’, adjusting myself to be accepted in the new society.
My paintings and installations explore personal and narrative space, where the sensations of warmth and intimacy are expressed. This sweetness, through all the bitterness of struggle, is essential; I strive for optimism, even in hardship and isolation.”
Born in Seoul, South Korea, In Kyoung Chun is a painter living in Atlanta, Georgia. Chun’s recent solo exhibitions include The New Gallery of Austin Peay State University, TN; Sumter County Gallery, SC; HiLo Press of Atlanta. Her recent two-person shows were at Spruill Art Gallery of Atlanta, Mary S. Byrd Gallery of Art at Augusta University, GA and Project:ARTspace, New York, NY.
Chun’s work has been included to its permanent collection of High Museum of Art, the City of Atlanta Mayors Office of Cultural Affairs, Fulton County Public Library of Atlanta, Welch School of Art & Design at Georgia State University and numerous private collections including the late Master Larry Walker’s. Chun’s sculpture Blue Gate was showcased at Virginia Museum of Fine Art. In Richmond, Emory University of Atlanta and Industrial City Plaza of Brooklyn, New York. Last year, Blue Gate became a part of its permanent collections of the Goat Farm Arts Center in Atlanta.
Chun was a finalist of the Edge Award 2023 at Swan Coach House of Atlanta and completed her three-year-residency at the Atlanta Contemporary in 2022. In 2024, she attended the Virginia Center for Creative Arts’ residency at le Moulin a Nef in France and had a solo show at Whitespace’s Shed in Atlanta and her installation “Shared Room” was featured for an online exhibition New Art Dealers Alliance Curated: ASSEMBLY. Chun participated in the Art on Paper New York 2024 with Metropolitan Art Atelier and the premiere Atlanta Art Fair with Spruill Gallery.
www.inkyoungchoichun.com / Instagram @inkyoungc