OPENING: July 11; 6 – 9 pm

JARRETT MIN DAVIS’s work deals with the bewilderment and uncertainty of identity. The figures are integrated from multiple Asian pop sources and dressed in clothing from both Eastern and Western culture. Along with avian imagery, these Asian pop icons inhabit a psychological landscape created by combining traditional Korean architecture, bombed-out Western ruins, and Flemish-style painting.
The particularized scenography is a blend of Korean and partially demolished Western architecture. It is the artist’s reflection on the duality of being Korean-American. The Western European images depict the ruins of architecture destroyed by various world conflicts. The Korean imagery is taken from traditional Confucian Sõwon architecture, from the Chõson period, and stylized Korean paper lanterns. Within the early Flemish-style landscapes are elements of Chinese, Italian and Korean cultures. The fusing of multiple differentiated image-streams into one is an attempt to deal with the uneasy liminal quality of being between two cultures.
The birds chosen for each painting are almost exclusively exotic Asian or African species. The avian imagery has three main functions:  as signifier of aggressive invasiveness, as an emblem of the resurgence of an extinct native species, and representative of the interaction between the West and the Orient.
A purposeful ambiguity is created through the layering and interlocking of images— the exploration of scale, proportion, volume, paint and charcoal. Inverting the scale of the figures, birds, and buildings, putting painted passages next to charcoal rendered objects, and layering images creates a fractured yet cohesive whole.
The work is built up to induce a narrative-like quality, yet the stories are meant as discontinuous ones. The inhabiting creatures cope with and adapt to the deserted and demolished architecture in a faux idyllic landscape. In the making of this work, the artist is learning to create personal, even private spaces. The paintings, to a greater or lesser degree serve as indicators of frustration and confusion within the everyday, as well as signposts of impending integration and resolution.

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