What to do in Oklahoma on Dec. 28, 2009
Today’s featured event:
See the work of mixed-media artist E.K. Jeong, who uses a diverse assortment of art materials and techniques to create the works included in her exhibit “Esquisse,” at the state Captiol.
The exhibit will be on display though Jan. 31 in the Governor’s Gallery, on the second floor of the state Capitol. The gallery is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday. Admission is free and exhibits are curated by the Oklahoma Arts Council.
Translated from French, “Esquisse” means the first sketch of a picture or model of a statue. Now living in Weatherford, Jeong credits her experiences growing up in Korea as well as the landscape of her new home in Oklahoma as influences for this body of work.
“I consider these works as a new beginning for a more productive future as an artist and citizen of Oklahoma,” says Jeong in a news release. She says the compositions experiment with negative space and form and echo the “big open space and red earth of Oklahoma.” However, Jeong also says, “In a couple of pieces that have bright colors, you can see the color combinations are very Eastern. These colors remind me of a local festival I saw in Korea when I was a child with lights everywhere and colorful decorations. Those are the memories inside me and they find their way out into my art.”
Jeong received her bachelor of fine arts in fiber arts from Dong-A University in Busan, Korea. In Korea, she felt “there were certain restrictions for women. I moved to New York in 1993 to go to graduate school because I wanted to move myself out of that restrictive structure and develop independence. It gave me the freedom to make the art that I wanted to make,” she says in the release.
Once in the United States, Jeong studied for a bachelor of arts in art history and an master of fine arts in mixed media and fiber sculpture at the State University of New York at New Paltz. After graduating, she taught art courses in New York City.
In 2005, Jeong relocated to Oklahoma, where she is currently assistant 
professor of art at Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford. She is also working towards her Ph.D. in Fine Arts from Texas Tech University in Lubbock. She is actively involved in a current public art venture in Weatherford titled The Community Tapestry Project, which brings community volunteers together to complete a massive tapestry using a 16-foot-by-9-foot weaving loom.
Throughout her extensive education in the arts, Jeong has explored old and new media including tapestry, weaving, drawing, painting, papermaking, mixed media and installation art. She was invited to show her work in the 4th and 5th International Fiber Art Biennales in China in 2006 and 2008. She also won the best of show in “Paper Work: In, On, and Of Paper IV,” a juried exhibition held by the Foundry Art Centre in St. Charles, Mo.
For more information on the exhibit, go to www.arts.ok.gov.
For more events, go to www.wimgo.com.
-BAM
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