Blob Series No.07 (2022) Painting by Jay Chung

For five years, I have traveled to refugee camps throughout the world. In each country, the same extreme conditions have forced a new perspective in how I see the human condition and, ultimatley, how I reflect on my artwork. Recently my work ruminates on how we can visualize human will and our aspirations and effectively present them. My processes for creating these series of pieces is embodied in meditation, deep rest, focused thought, and integration of quantum mechanics and the resonance of the physicality of our bodies.

Take a deeper look. Humans are vibrations, and we respond to the echoes and reverberations and resonate with others. Everything life interacts with sends its seismic waves just by existing. We produce them, feel them, and create a tidal routine. Life itself has a cycle. These figurative paintings embrace this alternative to the conventional representation of the body and visceral insight into our conscious and unconscious experience of being in the world.

There is a relationship between the physical and the cerebral. Society, imagination, and dreams illustrate the contrast between the tangible and intangible. My Reverberation series draws inspiration from French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-61) and his unfinished manuscript "The Visible and the Invisible". Just as Merleau-Ponty analyzes our understanding of the human being through dualistic thinking and dichotomies, my work focuses on the human form, utilizing ideas of contemporary physics to reveal the lack of certainty in how we perceive the human condition, recognizable spaces, and the interrelations of objects.

Related themes

Surrealism