Born in South Korea, Yeonsu Ju now lives and works in London. Influenced by the spontaneous and forceful technique of Francis Bacon, she describes her paintings as “an imaginary space where you can meet lost loves”. Her images often depict social gatherings with characters painted with a few suggestive brushstrokes; dream-like and colorful, they seem to be idealized or dream-like versions of events from an unknown era.
At the border of figuration and abstraction, Yeonsu Ju manages to give the viewer an intense experience with a startling economy of means. Blocks of color intermesh and dissolve each other while human figures are characterized by thin black lines that are reminiscent of traditional Asian art.
Yeonsu Ju graduated with an MFA at the Slade School of Art in London. She is a winner of the RGI New Graduate Award 2021 and her work is shortlisted for RBA Rome scholarship awards 2022, Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2021 and others. Her work was exhibited at Art Paris and in a solo presentation at Asia Society Paris.