Julia Jo (b. 1991, Seoul) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Jo draws upon social and familial settings of intense, often miscommunicated, emotions. Her works invite the viewer into intimate spaces of fracture and convergence requiring prolonged visual struggle and investigation. She relies on abstraction and vivid colors to extend into a fantastical setting where the structures and the figures are difficult to discern, using sharp and fluid mark-making assembled through complex layers, conveying unresolved images rooted in internal conflict. Once in, the viewer is sometimes pushed away, but Jo provides moments of clarity. Ruptures appear – a screaming face, a fist holding a knife, or a leg jutting into a corner. The paintings hold a deceptive splendor, masking the violence and frustration that link the figures together into an organized yet chaotic negotiation. In 2021 Julia Jo participated in a two-person exhibition at Dinner Gallery in New York, and has upcoming solo exhibitions with Ronchini, London and Charles Moffett, New York in 2022.