Jeongsu Woo Biography

Born in 1986, Jeongsu Woo is among the most closely watched young Korean painters working today. As suggested by the title of one of his catalogues, Flâneur Notes, his work conveys the sensibilities of an urbane, witty observer. His boulevards are not merely physical, however. They traverse genres and periods, cultural motifs high and low, and elements both sensuous and sublime. His canvases may be seen as a record of the feelings and sensations of these aesthetic wanderings, and a visual approximation of what it means to be a young painter in the metropolitan East in the early 21st century—highly attuned to a cultural history defined by the West but free to sample and remix it into something entirely of its own time and place.

A sophisticated palimpsest of references and signifiers that elide temporal and cultural parameters, Woo's painting is as likely to layer harlequins and floral patterns (à la Patterns & Decorations) with flat iterations of Morandian still-life vases as to appropriate antiquarian images from illustrated literary works, while slyly undercutting the often weighty scenes with the utterly contemporary and ubiquitous smiley face. Alternating between homage, appropriation, and subversion, his work is an acknowledgment, nonetheless, of the enduring craft of painting, characterized as it is by a sensitive attention to palette, gestures and strokes of the brush, and pictorial composition.

Jeongsu Woo has held solo institutional exhibitions at Doosan Gallery, Seoul, and Doosan Gallery, New York (both 2020); Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul (2018); and OCI Museum of Art, Seoul (2016), among others. His work has also been included in important group shows at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Korea, Gwacheon (2021); Ilmin Museum of Art, Seoul (2021); Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul (2020); Seoul Museum of Art (2019); and Gwangju Biennal (2018). In 2024, he is slated to have a solo exhibition at Art Sonje Center, Seoul.

His work is held in numerous private collections, as well as notable public collections including National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul; Mimesis Art Museum, Paju, Korea; OCI Museum of Art, Seoul; Doosan Art Center, Seoul, and Blackstone Group, Seoul and New York.

Jeongsu Woo received a BFA (2010) and MFA (2015) from Korea National University of the Arts, Seoul.

Text courtesy BB&M.