




Julia Jo: Swoon
Julia Jo: Swoon
September 21-November 4
Jessica Silverman is pleased to announce Julia Jo: Swoon, the Brooklyn-based painter’s first exhibition with the gallery and in San Francisco, on view September 21 through November 4, 2023. In Jo’s distinctive style of oil painting, bodily forms unite with swarms of bold, curvilinear brush strokes. The oscillation between figuration and abstraction generates a flow between internal feelings and external gestures. Featuring a vibrant palette, her paintings document a rhythmic, and often agitating exploration into the limits of human connection.
Born in Seoul, Jo spent her childhood and adolescence moving between South Korea and various places across the United States. Throughout her peripatetic adolescence, she relied on practiced, performative exchanges of language, personas, and cultural social codes. Today, Jo engages in a form of action painting as a release from the rehearsed gestures of her youth, surrendering to speed and emotion. The canvases display churning strokes and swirls into tidal-like compositions of color and form. Amidst layers of violet, forest green, and crimson, traces of bodies appear. Hints of an extended leg, a stiletto shoe, a pregnant body, or a martini glass leave the viewer wanting more.
INSTALLATION VIEW










SELECTED WORKS

My Alibi, 2023
Oil on canvas
80 x 80 inches / 203.2 x 203.2 cm

Make A Wish, 2023
Oil on canvas
80 x 80 inches / 203.2 x 203.2 cm

Come Hither, 2023
Oil on canvas
70 x 70 inches / 177.8 x 177.8 cm
My Alibi, 2023
Oil on canvas
80 x 80 inches / 203.2 x 203.2 cm
Make A Wish, 2023
Oil on canvas
80 x 80 inches / 203.2 x 203.2 cm
Come Hither, 2023
Oil on canvas
70 x 70 inches / 177.8 x 177.8 cm


Afternoon Tea, 2023
Oil on canvas
70 x 70 inches / 177.8 x 177.8 cm

Beauty Rest, 2023
Oil on canvas
60 x 60 inches / 152.4 x 152.4 cm

Waking Dream, 2023
Oil on canvas
60 x 60 inches / 152.4 x 152.4 cm
Afternoon Tea, 2023
Oil on canvas
70 x 70 inches / 177.8 x 177.8 cm
Beauty Rest, 2023
Oil on canvas
60 x 60 inches / 152.4 x 152.4 cm
Waking Dream, 2023
Oil on canvas
60 x 60 inches / 152.4 x 152.4 cm

Drawing upon a deep well of moments lost in translation, Jo’s paintings position bodies as interlocutors and abstractions as emotions. In doing so, the artist probes the generative and restrictive limits of communication to find deeper, more intimate experiences.

Envy, 2023
Oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches / 121.9 x 121.9 cm

Roll, 2023
Oil on canvas
36 x 36 inches / 91.4 x 91.4 cm

Shy, 2023
Oil on canvas
36 x 36 inches / 91.4 x 91.4 cm
Envy, 2023
Oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches / 121.9 x 121.9 cm
Roll, 2023
Oil on canvas
36 x 36 inches / 91.4 x 91.4 cm
Shy, 2023
Oil on canvas
36 x 36 inches / 91.4 x 91.4 cm