Layering time
until it becomes memory
A painter who builds the past into the surface of the canvas,layer by layer, until time itself becomes visible.
From Seoul to London —
a practice of layered time
Jeong Mijeong studied Western Painting at Sejong University in Seoul, building the structural and technical foundation of her practice in the discipline of oil painting. After graduating, she crossed to London to pursue an MA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London — an immersion in international contemporary art practice that deepened her thinking about what painting can hold and what it can do.
The core of her work is accumulation. Her paintings are built through the repeated application of oil paint: layer upon layer, each allowed to settle before the next is laid down. With each addition the colour deepens and changes — the intended hue and an unexpected one emerging together, inseparable. The resulting surface is not a record of a single moment but of many: time made visible, made material.
All of her work begins with personal memory and the process by which memory transforms. Photographs serve as a starting point — not as documents to be reproduced faithfully, but as traces to be reinterpreted from the present, reconstructed and restaged on the canvas. When one memory rises, others arrive with it; the past is never singular. Her paintings are built to show this: images that overlap and tremble, impressions that shift within a single surface.
The concept of the palimpsest — a manuscript where earlier writing has been partially erased but still shows through beneath new text — runs through her most recent work. The 2025 solo exhibition at Space Thunder was titled 〈Palimpsest — Things That Remain While Disappearing〉: an acknowledgement that nothing in painting is ever truly covered. Each earlier layer persists, visible to those who look closely, shaping the surface above it. This is how memory works, and how her paintings work.
Her practice has been recognised through major awards — the Grand Prize at the IBK Emerging Artist Competition (2018) and the New Wave Excellence Award at the Busan International Art Fair (2021) — and her works are held in the MMCA Art Bank, the Seoul City Hall Museum, Gyeonggi Museum of Art, and the Yangju Museum of Art Chang Ucchin, among others. In 2026 she was selected — from over 700 applicants — for the Galleries Art Fair special exhibition 〈ZOOM IN Edition 7〉, one of ten artists chosen.
Major themes
- 1
Multi-layered painting as temporal record
Each layer of oil paint carries a moment; together they form a surface in which past and present are simultaneously present.
- 2
Memory as reconstruction
Photographs are a starting point, not an end: reinterpreted and restaged from the present, overlapping until the image trembles with accumulated meaning.
- 3
Palimpsest — what remains while disappearing
Nothing is ever entirely covered. Earlier layers persist, shaping the surface above — as in memory, where traces of the past show through the present.
The artist's timeline
- Edu.BFA, Dept. of Painting (Western Painting), Sejong University, Seoul.
- Edu.MA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London, UK.
- 2014–15Group exhibitions in London — Chelsea Salon, Cons Project; Passport Pimlico; The Lewis PR Orbital Gallery, Milbank.
- 2016–18〈Self-Transformation〉 (Jeong Gallery, 2016); 〈MY STORY〉, 〈Remembrance〉 (Fill Gallery / Sai Art Document, 2017); 〈Intersected Time〉 (Seum Art Space, 2018).
- 2018Grand Prize — IBK Industrial Bank of Korea Emerging Artist Competition.
- 2020–21〈Rendezvous〉 (E-Land World HQ, 2020); 〈TIME〉 (Fill Gallery, 2020); 〈Line and Light〉 (Art Space W, 2021); 〈I Run Into You〉 (Art Soombi, 2021). BIAF New Wave Excellence Award (2021).
- 2022–24〈YONDER〉 (Fill Gallery, 2022); 〈The Time in Between〉 (Seoul Gallery, 2022); 〈Time, Space and Memory〉 (E-Land Gallery, 2023–24); 〈Connection〉 (Gallery Sil, 2024).
- 2025–26〈Palimpsest — Things That Remain While Disappearing〉 (Space Thunder, 2025); selected for Galleries Art Fair 〈ZOOM IN Edition 7〉 (2026, one of 10 from 700+ applicants).
Awards & public collections
- 2018 IBK Industrial Bank of Korea Emerging Artist Competition — Grand Prize
- 2021 Busan International Art Fair (BIAF) — New Wave Emerging Artist Excellence Award
- Collections: MMCA Art Bank (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea); Seoul City Hall Museum; Gyeonggi Museum of Art; Yangju Museum of Art Chang Ucchin
- 2026 Galleries Art Fair — ZOOM IN Edition 7, selected from 700+ applicants (one of 10 artists)
Three essays —
on painting, time, and memory
1Multi-layered painting — building time into the surface
The process of Jeong Mijeong's painting is also its subject. She works in oil: a medium that requires patience, where each layer must dry before the next can be applied, where the colour deepens and shifts with every addition, where the hand cannot rush the material. To paint in oil this way is to work in time as much as in paint.
The result is a surface where nothing is ever finished in a single pass. A ground colour is laid, then modified, then partially obscured, then built upon again. Colours that were intended produce other colours; the unexpected and the deliberate become indistinguishable. This accumulation is not merely technical: it is the method made identical to the meaning. A painting about layered time is made by layering, over time.
2Time, space, and memory — how the past returns
Jeong Mijeong's paintings begin with personal memory — not as something stable and fixed, but as something that transforms each time it is recalled. Photographs are the starting point: a record of a moment as it was seen, not as it is remembered. She takes these documents and reinterprets them from the present, restaging and reconstructing them on the canvas until the distinction between what was and what is remembered dissolves.
Memory does not arrive alone. When one scene from the past rises to the surface, others rise with it — connected by mood, by place, by the quality of light. The painting is built to carry this multiplicity. Images overlap; impressions tremble; what was once distinct becomes diffuse. The finished work contains many moments simultaneously, none of them quite complete, all of them still present. This is how memory works, and this is what her canvases show.
3Palimpsest — what remains while disappearing
The palimpsest — a manuscript scraped clean so it can be reused, yet still bearing the ghost of the earlier writing — has become the governing image of Jeong Mijeong's most recent practice. Her 2025 solo exhibition at Space Thunder was titled〈Palimpsest — Things That Remain While Disappearing〉, and the idea applies equally to her method and her subject.
On the canvas: layers are added, partially covering what came before — but not erasing it. Earlier marks continue to act beneath the surface, affecting tone, affecting texture, affecting the quality of what is seen from above. Nothing is neutral; every present moment in the painting is shaped by everything that preceded it.
This is also true of memory. The past is not simply stored and retrieved; it is present in the present, shaping how we see now. The places and people and light of years ago persist in how we read the places and people and light of today. Jeong Mijeong's paintings make this structure visible: the past showing through the present, faint but indelible, part of every surface we see.
From Seoul to London and back, Jeong Mijeong has built a patient, layered practice of painting grounded in the question of how time and memory persist. She joins this campaign in solidarity with fellow artists — so that the next generation might keep adding their own layers.
Selected Works
2 works are featured here.
Jeong Mijeong joined this campaign in solidarity with fellow artists. Every work sold flows directly into the artists' mutual-aid loan fund— a purchase becomes the next month's lifeline for an artist navigating financial exclusion today.
