Keem Jiyoung: Wavering Dawn

About the exhibition

Look at the base of a candle flame. The small blue zone there, which P21 notes can reach about 1,400°C against roughly 1,200°C for the bright yellow part, is the starting point of Blue Glow, the new painting series at the center of Keem Jiyoung's solo show. Nine paintings from 2025 and 2026, 22 related drawings, a digital print and works in paraffin wax make up 35 works in all.

From a distance the canvases read as single color fields. Up close they show dense brushwork and separate layers of color: Keem does not mix paints, and lays blue over the green, orange and red grounds of the earlier series Glowing Hour, so the older palette survives beneath the surface. The drawings hang low, so visitors can study the strokes up close.

The gallery links this blue to Keem's Blue Series (2016–2018), 32 oil-pastel scenes of disaster based on newspaper images of tragic events in modern Korean history. Independent curator Choi Heeseung, who wrote the exhibition essay, describes the blue as a light close to everyday life rather than a distant, abstract color.

About the artist

Keem Jiyoung (b. 1987) is based in Seoul. Since the Sewol ferry disaster in 2014, the artist's work has examined the structural problems behind social disasters. Keem has shown in group exhibitions at MMCA, Doosan Gallery and SongEun, and works are held by MMCA, the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art and the SongEun Art and Cultural Foundation.

Sources: P21: Keem Jiyoung · P21: Wavering Dawn