Cooper Hewitt says...
Julia Kwon is a Korean-American fiber artist whose studio is currently based in northern Virginia. She earned her BA in Studio Art at Georgetown University (2012) and completed her MFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University (2016). In 2020, she was selected for the residency program at the Chautauqua School of Art in New York.
Kwon started to seriously consider a career in art during her undergraduate studies. Textiles were important part of her earliest memories. The home sewing activities of her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother created a lasting appreciation for the effort, technical skill, and attention to detail that each family member brought to their domestic projects, which included drapes, curtains, cushion covers, and traditional embroidered Korean thimbles. For her art practice, Kwon chose interpretative bojagi, the Korean object-wrapping cloth made from small pieces of scrap fabric, a practice dating to the early Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910). She uses this process to consider ideas such as tradition, craft, and feminized labor. [1] Often constructed of delicate silk, bojagi is a form of piecework that can serve as a symbol of femininity, beauty, and resourcefulness. [2] While Kwon’s past work includes large installation-based projects, she pivoted to mask production during the pandemic, using the format to celebrate her cultural identity through the overt display opportunity afforded by public mask wearing.
[1] https://thecoastalpost.com/studio-visits-posts/2021/4/6/julia-kwon-visited-by-paolo-aaro; accessed on May 17, 2021
[2] https://www.jra.org/uploads/1/1/6/9/116957809/x_jra_quarterly_winter2021-final.pdf; accessed on May 17, 2021
