Julie Chung

Lives and works in New York, NY

Artist statement

Raised in Daejeon, South Korea, my paintings explore the intersection of post-industrial landscapes and colonial occupation through the lens of inherited trauma and forgotten legacies. In the midst of painting lessons, my grandmother also passed down stories of her childhood: innocence shaped by war, displacement, and colonial upheaval. Urban cities of the current polarized these visions of untouched landscapes and wild fauna, these images blurring into my paintings today. Through illustrating figurative scenes, I construct dreamscapes that feel at once uncanny and familiar, like memories hanging just out of reach. I am drawn to the decay and psychological residue hiding under facades of postwar and post-industrial environments, attempting to depict landscapes as the role of both setting and witness. Pieces such as “The Hunt” reimagined Korean folklore and ancestral tales that have survived colonization, proxy wars, and post-war industrialization. Native fauna, now extinct from colonial hunting and land destruction, remain in traditional folklore—attributing towards the power of the spoken word when left out of the history books. This narrative continues in “Poppy Tears”, an exposure of the forgotten opium crisis in Korea during colonial rule. I hope the opening of one's personal narratives to the public allows these stories, however interpreted, to continue branching and evolving—staying alive.

Artwork