Memories of Elsewhere: Park Jieun + Kristi Kongi

Memories of Elsewhere represents the melancholic feelings of transitory phases of life– when our subconscious seamlessly presents us with fleeting images of places from before. The brain conceives our memories in a duality: the physical, in which one recalls their observations through compositional means, and the emotional, where evocations of the past exist as suggestive forms that represent the emotional associations with physical places. Both inspired by physical places, Park Jieun and Kristi Kongi turn inward to their own subconscious emotions to represent the fleeting melancholic moments of their memory; posing physical landscapes as requiems for solitude, joy, or as personal reflections.

Kristi Kongi is an Estonian artist that roots herself in a formal exploration of light, color, and space. For her, landscapes exist as emotional horizons, where spatial divisions are suggested by abstract curvilinear shapes and bright saturated color fields. Vivid crimsons, electric pinks, blood oranges, and deep purples are used to create dramatic contrasts, resulting in a flurry of emotional responses that remain indignant of Kongi’s own illustrious memories of places.

Park Jieun, a South Korean artist, depicts fragments of cityscapes inspired by her past experiences in these places. Jieun uses traditional Chinese ink marks swiftly to unveil modern places, creating an impassioned contrast between past memories and her present recollections. Within her powerful brushstrokes, parts of iconic cities are carefully composed, as these physical representations reveal Jieun’s awe and joy when experiencing these places to the extent that their physical structures remain as a memory.

Both artists, when in dialogue in this exhibition, explore the same desires of capturing spatial experiences as they slowly disperse from their memories. Kongi explores how emotive associations can elicit sentimental memories, basked in her own mental and spiritual splendors of which she recalls from her past. Jieun, on the other hand, recalls her vivid memories of places through deliberate and structured compositions to cherish and keep the physical integrity of these memories from elsewhere. Memories of Elsewhere combines these two different styles of artmaking to reflect upon the ways in which we remember and cherish the past that becomes ever so distant as our environments constantly change.