A Korean-American artist is opening her first painting exhibition in Seoul on Sunday, exploring the idea of identity.

Jane Rhyu, who is more established in other fields such as performance art, uses identity as a theme for a lot of her work, and said the inclusion of several self-portraits helped illustrate that idea.

“I think a way to explore that is by looking at yourself and your own growth and how you experience your own memory and your recall your future,” she said.

She said that the brushwork had remained largely consistent in the pieces but that the more recent work in the exhibition was brighter and more detailed.

Others have told her that the paintings look like they are by different artists. Rhyu said this was something she was happy about. 

“I like this idea of my paintings all looking like they’re by different people, because we are different people,” she said.

“We go by supposed one name and everyone knows me as Jane, but I distinctly remember a baby Jane and a pre-teen jane and adult Jane and I visualize certainly that I will be a grandma Jane.

“There’s something essential that remains the same, but really if you took different pictures of me at different times and mixed them in with pictures of different Korean girls, I’m not sure that you could line them up as the same person.”

Her ideas about her identity indicate one reason this is her first painting exhibition.

“I never really considered myself a painter. I considered myself an artist but I do performance art, I do sound art, I do Internet art, but not necessarily a painter.”

“I think a lot of people are similar. They have a hard time saying ‘I’m a photographer’ even though they take photos or ‘I’m a writer,’ even though they write all the time.”

She said that she had come to the conclusion as a performance artist that the pressure on her to perform was not coming from other people but from within. Having shaken off the idea that she was under pressure from other people, it made her much more able to accept herself as a painter.

“If you’re doing it, you are it, and you don’t have to convince anyone but yourself. Once you get over that it’s easier for yourself to be the writer or the artist you already are,” she said.

The reception for Rhyu’s exhibition is Sunday at 6 p.m. and runs until May 31 at Garage Gallery in Itaewon.

(paulkerry@heraldcorp.com)