Kiaf Highlights 2025 작가로 선정된 조은시는 기호, 도표, 상징을 통해 구조와 인식, 해석의 문제를 치열하게 탐구해온 신예다. 조은시의 작업은 세계를 이해하기 위해 우리가 의지하는 체계와 질서를 회화적 언어로 드러내는 데 집중한다. 개인과 공동체, 부분과 전체가 맺는 관계는 화면 속에서 서로 교차하며, 반복되는 패턴과 닮음의 원리는 주요 모티프로 작동한다. 최근에는 속담, 단위, 분류 체계 등 인위적으로 형성된 시스템을 주제로 삼아, 회화와 설치를 병렬적으로 배치하며 언어와 지식의 균열을 드러내고 새로운 해석의 가능성을 탐구하고 있다.

** 키아프 이후 전시 작품에 변동이 있을 예정입니다. ​

Selected as one of the Kiaf Highlights 2025 artists, Jo Eunsi is an emerging voice who rigorously explores issues of structure, perception, and interpretation through the use of symbols, diagrams, and signs. Her work focuses on translating the systems and orders we rely on to understand the world into a painterly language. Relationships between the individual and the community, the part and the whole, intersect across her canvases, while recurring patterns and principles of resemblance within uncontrollable orders serve as key motifs. More recently, she has turned her attention to human-made conventions—such as proverbs, units, and classification systems—juxtaposing painting and installation to expose the fissures of language and knowledge and to open new possibilities of interpretation.

This showcase has been organized to mark Jo’s selection as a Kiaf Highlight and brings together key works first presented at her solo exhibition at GalleryMEME in August. For visitors who missed that exhibition, it offers another chance to encounter her works firsthand, while also reaffirming the significance of her recognition as a Highlight artist. On-site, the showcase also features a screening of her exhibition installation footage and an interview with the artist, allowing audiences to experience her context and thought process in greater depth.

Alongside works that were introduced in the solo exhibition, new pieces are also presented here. The artist’s representative Study of Balance series was created by suspending a canvas from a hanger with weights attached to both ends, with “different forms of equal mass” painted on the front and back. The theme of equilibrium and correspondence emerges simultaneously through its physical structure and visual imagery. Another work, Inertial Attitude, places canvases depicting the sun and moon on a swing, visualizing tidal movements and the recurring cycles of celestial bodies, and invites viewers to perceive natural order through an “inertial” lens.

In addition, this showcase introduces a new work not exhibited in her solo show: Seeing Differently (2023, oil on panel, 168×76×44 cm). Here, various images and signs are arranged in parallel, coexisting within a single pictorial structure. By juxtaposing fragments that differ in form and reference, the work questions the very act of seeing itself and demonstrates how pictorial devices can provoke shifts in perception—an approach central to Jo’s artistic practice.

Planned and presented by GalleryMEME, this showcase highlights how a next-generation artist builds her own visual language. Jo Eunsi’s works move beyond the reproduction of images, turning form itself into a tool for thought, and invite viewers to reconsider the ways we perceive and interpret the world.

** Please note that the lineup of works may be subject to change after KIAF. 

조은시 Jo Eunsi

b. 1999

천안 출생

2022  이 작품을 주목한다, 이화여자대학교, 대한민국​ 

Jo Eunsi

b.1999, Cheonan