We are pleased to announce Chung Eun-Mo’s first solo exhibition at our gallery in Milan.

The work of Chung Eun-Mo (*Seoul 1946) is based on profound knowledge of Modernism, especially the work of the early abstractionists. Like Malevich and Albers, she is fascinated by mathematical and chromatic harmonies and the mutable effects of light on them. Born in Seoul, in the mid-1960s she moved to New York, where in 1980 she obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree at the Pratt Institute, after which she went on to perfect her geometric painting style. Towards the end of the 1980s she chose to live in Italy, first in Rome, then Torre Orsina in Umbria; since 2019 she lives in Milan.

The bond of Chung Eun-Mo with Italy is strong and long-lasting, her art reflects aspects of Italian art history, but also the atmosphere of its ancient civilization, architecture and landscape. Many of her works are abstract and poetic recreations of places she has seen and experienced, sequences or conglomerates of shapes and colors with a strong evocative power.

Chung Eun-Mo's painting can be described as abstract translations of visual experiences, among which we can recognize architectural elements, suggestions of landscape and interiors in the changing light of hours and seasons. Her practice departs from minimal/conceptual art, taking a direction in which the dialogue with the seen and remembered spaces becomes important.

When someone asked her what the ideal space would be to show her work, Eun-Mo replied "a well-proportioned room with good light and quiet". This was perhaps an elegant way of saying that she wishes her paintings to convey these qualities to wherever they may be placed. Chung favors daylight, when the infinite treasures of the physical world are revealed.

She sees colors as "light, weight, and pleasure". Color in her work is a substance to give light and to build shapes, in making a painting which may become a pleasure to see. Composed of gently shifting planes of color and light, Eun-Mo's paintings present a sensitive geometry, differing from the normative order of minimal art. Chung Eun-Mo conceives of color as a real, malleable, tactile material that sometimes overflows beyond the borders of the canvas to transform real space.

Over the last two decades Chung Eun-Mo has had many exhibitions, including solo shows in New York, Rome, Munich, and Seoul, as well as an acclaimed site-specific installation at IMMA, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin in 2003. Her most recent exhibitions include a two-person show with Etel Adnan at Monica De Cardenas Gallery, Zuoz, (2020) and a solo show at ASSAB ONE, Milan (2017). Her work is featured in public and private collections.