1. Installation View

2. Trickster #2 ,  2018, ink on paper, 46 x 46 x 90 cm

3. day, month, year ,  2019, wood, paper and mixed media, variable size

4. I have three names,  2019, mixed media, 65 x 45 x 35 cm

5. 1/ 32000 ,  2019, mixed media, variable size

6. Installation View

Jang Mee  

TRAUMA TRICKSTER 

21.02 - 16.03.2019

curator

 Madeleine Onstwedder

DaBe Network

Research Grant Receiver Jang Mee 2018-2019

Mainstream narratives about refugees in news outlets tend to fit into one single story: a life riddled with trauma, exacerbated by difficulty integrating. While there can be truth in this story, it paints a monolithic picture that allows for little individuality to come through. This exhibition posits potentiality as opposition to the constraint.

Jang Mee explores ideas of the myriad of self in her first Berlin exhibition, Trauma Trickster. Upon entering the exhibit, the viewer is first confronted with ink drawings of two large crows. These enigmatic birds are powerful, larger than life, yet remain oblivious to the visitors that pass them, staring only at each other with blank eyes. The energetic brushstrokes that make up the crows’ feathers are at once playful and brooding, a contradictory stance reflected throughout the exhibition and encapsulated in its title.

Jang Mee is a painter and installation artist currently completing a one-year residency at DISKURS Berlin. She studied Fine Arts at the Kyungpook National University in South Korea and is usually based in Daegu, South Korea. She has taken part in group shows and has exhibited her work in solo exhibitions in Seoul and Daegu, South Korea, and Hangzhou, China. In 2016 she was awarded the Young Artist of the Year prize by the Daegu Arts Center. After spending a year living and working in Cambodia, she developed an interest in exploring her own experiences engaging with a myriad of cultures across Asia. Her work investigates interactions between cultural history and the lives of individuals. She has previously worked predominantly in installation but has recently been exploring ink on paper techniques, experimenting with how this traditional medium can be used to engage with the contemporary subject matter.

- Madeleine Onstwedder