Joongwon Charles Jeong
Joongwon Charles Jeong

Joongwon Charles Jeong

Be inspired by our ambassador Joongwon Charles Jeong hyperrealistic paintings based off Greek sculptures, friends, family and his favourite actors.

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Aristotle once said: ‘A corpse is repulsive, but the painting of a corpse can be beautiful.’ And I say, ‘Purulent acne is repulsive, but the painting of a pimple can be beautiful.’

Jeong's hyperrealism

Jeong creates hyperrealistic paintings based off of Greek sculptures, friends, family and his favourite actors. His first works were those close to them, and then moved onto the ancient Greeks.

Jeong has been inspired by not only the human body, but also nature as you should study nature to study the imperfections of the human body. The classical arts of the Greeks idealises the human form, but Jeong brings that down and scatters it in the world of the real by making it human.

A simulcarum

Jeong explains his work as a simulcarum – an image or an effigy that represents or imitates something or someone and is largely regarded as distorted, inferior and an imperfect copy. This has now moved into the term of hyperreality – the confusion as to which an individual cannot determine what is real and what is fiction.

People often ask him why he paints hyperrealistically when you can just take a photograph of that thing with a camera. This is the wrong definition of hyperrealism and how mistaken they are – it is a artistic reflection of hyperreality (the experience). Because the paintings are so realistic, and you are confused whether you are looking at a photograph or a painting, you experience in that split second the hyperreality that is the basis for hyperrealism.

Featured artwork from Jeong

"Bruce Willis”
Pencil on paper / 18 x 25cm

Find out more about Joongwon Charles Jeong

Artwork from Jeong

Face of Sir Ian McKellen

Acrylic on Canvas / 73 x 117 cm

Painting Bernini's Costanza

Painting of Homer

Acrylic on Canvas / 112 x 162 cm