Jade Jwa
Information
Artist Bio
I am a Korean American painter working primarily in oil, focusing on figurative scenes drawn from everyday life. My work centers on moments when people share space but are absorbed in different thoughts or actions—sitting together, moving through a place, or pausing mid-gesture. Rather than telling a story, I am interested in how attention, distance, and connection are quietly structured within these situations.
I often work with people close to me, including family members, because familiarity allows sustained observation over time. By returning to similar figures and settings, I examine small shifts in posture, movement, and relationship, and how these changes alter the way a scene is experienced. The figures in my paintings are present but inward-looking, shaped as much by their surroundings as by one another.
Through a restrained use of color and detail, I aim to create images that hold tension without explanation. My paintings invite slow looking, where meaning emerges from what is held back rather than what is emphasized.
My work begins with quiet, everyday moments that are often overlooked. I paint figures absorbed in their own interior states: a body paused mid-gesture, a relationship held in proximity but not fully articulated. These paintings are not intended as narratives or portraits in the conventional sense, but as sites of attention where presence is conditional rather than declared.
I work primarily with people closest to me, not to document them, but because proximity allows for sustained observation. By returning to the same subjects over time, I can notice subtle shifts in posture, distance, and awareness. Repetition becomes a way to register change without forcing resolution, allowing ambiguity to remain part of the image.
Rather than pursuing clarity or emotional legibility, I am interested in restraint. I deliberately withhold expressive cues and narrative closure, treating incompletion not as a lack, but as a condition that mirrors how memory, intimacy, and identity are actually experienced—partial, unstable, and continuously unfolding. The paintings resist offering a definitive reading, asking the viewer to remain with uncertainty rather than resolve it.
As a Korean American artist, I once felt compelled to articulate identity directly through visible markers or themes. Over time, I came to understand identity as something that can exist quietly—embedded in perception, in spatial relationships, in what is emphasized or left unspoken. Letting go of overt representation has allowed my work to move toward a more interior and observational space, where meaning emerges through structure, pressure, and omission rather than explanation.
Ultimately, my practice is less concerned with describing who these figures are than with attending to how they occupy space, how relationships shift, and how moments resist being fully known. Painting becomes a way to stay with that unresolved state—to hold presence without closure, and to allow meaning to remain open.
Education
Certificate in 2D Studio Art, Glendale Community College, Glendale, CA, 2026
Certificate in Graphic Design, Glendale Community College, Glendale, CA, 2023
Certificate in Taxation, Golden Gate University, San Francisco, CA, 2009
MS in Accountancy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL, 2005
BA in French Language and Literature at Seoul National University, South Korea, 2003
Awards / Honors
Award Winner, 12th PORTRAIT International Juried Art Competition, TERAVARNA, 2026
Memberships / Affiliations
Associate Member, Los Angeles Art Association (LAAA), 2026
Exhibitions
Root and Branch, Juried Group Exhibition
Los Angeles Art Association (LAAA), Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA, 2026
Previous Career
Senior Tax Analyst, Latham & Watkins LLP, Los Angeles, CA, 2009-2019
Tax Analyst, Hilton Hotels Corporation, Beverly Hills, CA, 2007-2009
Junior Accountant, Samsung SDI, Inc., Seoul, South Korea, 2003-2004