HALLO!

Jeehye Song's paintings seem to welcome us with open arms. Individual figures can be seen in limited, somehow private-looking spaces, accessories of daily life lie around. Despite the strong colours, however, the mood is rather restrained, subdued. The isolation of the figures in the limited pictorial space gives rise to a common desire to break out, a longing for the outside. There are many ways to get there - through the window, through the canvas or through the mouth of a colony of houseplants.

Whereas Jeehye Song's works at the time of the jury's decision were still marked by the restrictions of the Corona pandemic, in which her figures, completely flaccid, somehow tried to cope with the imposed isolation and boredom, in the present exhibition there is a real departure. The characters become active - even if the body sensation is still quite soft - they have overcome their limpness and are looking for new experiences.

Jeehye Song's pictorial themes are very close to her own everyday life, oriented towards personal feelings. By means of self-deprecating comedy, however, she manages to create a distance that also puts the situations and moods found in the audience into perspective and breaks through their self-referential persistence.