ARTIST STATEMENT

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Jean Rho is a mixed-media visual artist working primarily in ink, acrylic and various dry media, often on a ground of scroll paper. The scroll as ground, gives deference to her now distant Asian heritage. Jean was born in America in 1976, to first-generation Korean immigrants who survived the Japanese occupation and the Korean War. She has lived in the Nation’s capital, the heart of the southern confederacy, the mecca of art and culture, and has also traveled to distant third world countries. Amongst each place and people, she is drawn to those who are broken-hearted and crushed in spirit. (Psalm 34)

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In her work, the artist calls forth her own generational roots of trauma as she engages the surface in a transformative creative process. Each piece mirrors multi-layered and co-existent realities of loss, grief, identity, transformation and home. Her work fearlessly taps into the depths of human emotions to shift perspectives on the shared experience of being from a place yet feeling foreign, being a human on Earth, while also longing for a distant transcendent home. Jean’s work is a means to investigate not only her own personal realities but also to connect to the realities of others through a visual language.

ARTIST'S BIO

In 1994, with nothing but hope and ambition in her pockets, the artist moved from Richmond, VA to Brooklyn, NY to study fine art at Pratt Institute. Incidentally, she changed her major from painting and drawing to industrial design since her pockets also held deep-seated fears of living a life of poverty like that of previous generations before her. (Evidence of a life choice made with buried fear at the root.) She's held many jobs to survive- too many to count. Most were good for both usefulness and character. Yet for all her hard work, she chronically had little energy left to bring out what was always within.

Jean contracted covid in Jan of 2022 and thouroughly enjoyed having to quarantine in her tiny bedroom in Queens, NY. She is after all, a busy mom and at the time also worked full-time as a NYC art teacher for the DOE. With the onset of covid symptoms, long-dormant childhood memories rose to her present consciousness so she began drawing and painting as a means to process emotions attached to her memories of trauma, grief and loss. Since recovering from covid, she continues to produce work as a means to journey through the past, present and future-  from brokenness towards healing, then letting go.

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Burdens are like heavy rocks in a bag that we lug around wherever we go. A recent season of letting go of some rocks in my heavy bag allowed my hands and heart the freedom to pick up new things- or I should say return to myself. It is a joy to create again- even in the midst of a very packed daily life with unending demands. The creative process   empties my bag of each burden as I connect to the Holy Spirit. During the process of creation, I bring a heavy rock and hand it to Jesus. He takes it from me and exchanges it with something from Him- love, peace, healing, joy. In that process, time stands still as it will one day in Eternity. To create is to touch the corners of ones eternal existence- it is on earth, as it is in heaven. To then stand back and take stock of a finished piece is also a joy because in each piece is a depth of love- for the piece, for how I am created, and for my journey with Jesus.

As I share my art, my hope is for the viewer to connect with visual elements that evoke their own memories and personal life experiences through the formal qualities of my work. Another hope is to actually meet the viewer and have a conversation about a piece, our divergent life experiences, and our universal human connections. I was recently included in a group show in NYC. A couple of my pieces including the piece Generational Trauma, were hung in a vacant storefront in Manhattan’s UWS. A young Ukrainian woman who lived around the corner from it, kept passing by the piece and reached out to me one day to buy it. I had joked to friends about how no one would ever want or much less buy, some generational trauma for their living room wall. But when she and I connected at a nearby cafe, she shared about the deep meaning the piece held for her, as did I. We spent hours sharing about the journey of our lives and our hopes for what lies ahead.

Subsequent to the group show, a student in Paris, France was drawn to my work through the show's website (https://www.artontheavenyc.com/upper-west-side-artists-1/jean-rho), and requested a zoom interview with me about my work, which she then presented to her English class. Her English teacher reached out to the curator of the group show, then the curator invited me to speak as part of a Artist panel series through the generous programming by the Dorot Foundation. So I had the priviledge of speaking about the breadth of my work with a group of about 50-60 senior citizens who due to covid, were largely isolated from public life and discourse. It has been so rewarding to have one of my deepest hopes for my art realized- that those viewing my work would find a meaningful connection between the art and their own life experiences. When a work of art serves as a bridge for human conversation and convergence results, that is an indescribable gift.

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*The Blood refers to the blood of Jesus, shed at the cross for the propitiation of sins. 

"Oh to think where I would be, if not for You, if not for You." - Remembrance, Hillsong 

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