Atlanta Contemporary Announces Fall Exhibitions, Featuring Guggenheim Fellow Jiha Moon
“Ten Moon” Solo Exhibition and Group Print Show Explore Cultural Transformation and Korean Diasporic Identity
Atlanta, GA– Atlanta Contemporary announces two significant fall exhibitions featuring acclaimed artist Jiha Moon alongside a major group exhibition exploring Korean diasporic identity through printmaking. The programming highlights Moon’s artistic evolution and positions her work within the broader context of Korean artists navigating cultural heritage and migration. 
Ten Moon
Jiha Moon presents “Ten Moon,” a compelling new exhibition that captures her artistic evolution following her relocation from Atlanta to Tallahassee three years ago. The exhibition showcases
Moon’s signature blend of Korean visual traditions, American pop culture, and digital iconography through her innovative Shrine series—a collection of multimedia works that blur the boundaries between painting and sculpture.
The centerpiece of “Ten Moon” features Moon’s latest artistic breakthrough: circular panels fitted with shelves that create moonlike pictorial fields. Within these minimalist architectural frames, ceramic vessels, dragons, peaches, banana peels, clouds, and hybrid limbs float and interact with painted imagery, creating intimate spaces where imagined dreams unfold.
“This series is a meditation on that boundary,” Moon explains, “the moment when the tangible and intangible seem to coexist. These imagined worlds tap into memory, landscape, and emotion—reaching toward what lies buried deep within us.”
“Jiha’s practice is marked by a dynamic visual language. Her layered references—drawing from both Eastern and Western art histories, as well as elements of popular culture—invite sustained looking, revealing new associations and meanings with each encounter,” says Rebecca Cochran, an Atlanta-based art advisor. “These dual influences shape both her visual language—rich with personal symbols—and her choice of materials, whether in paintings on traditional Hanji paper or in ceramics.”
Moon’s work occupies a unique liminal space where familiar objects like books, houseplants, and furniture coexist with ephemeral elements such as mist, breath, and memory. This interplay reflects the complex layers of personal history, emotional resonance, migration, and cultural memory that define the contemporary experience.
Shaping Identity: Korean Diasporic Identity in Printmaking Alongside Moon’s solo exhibition, Atlanta Contemporary presents a group exhibition exploring the intricate relationship between cultural heritage, migration, and identity through printmaking.
Featuring works by Tschang Yeul Kim, Kakyoung Lee, U-fan Lee, Jiha Moon, Yoonmi Nam, Nam June Paek, Jean Shin, Joo Yeon Woo, and Jayoung Yoon, the exhibition spans four decades and highlights the experiences of Korean artists both in Korea and the diaspora.
The exhibition emphasizes how printmaking has served as a means of navigating cultural roots and hybrid identities in an increasingly globalized world. Historically significant in Korea for conveying religious, cultural, and political messages, printmaking has evolved over the past 40 years into a medium for exploring personal and collective identity, especially for artists grappling with maintaining Korean traditions while adapting to new environments abroad.
For diasporic artists, printmaking mediates between two worlds, addressing themes of displacement, belonging, and cultural memory. The works showcase the influence of Korean traditions through folklore, history, and religious iconography, while traditional techniques such as mokpanhwa (woodblock printing) are reinterpreted with contemporary aesthetics, blending past and present.
The exhibition is curated by Youmi Efurd, curator of the Richardson Family Art Museum, who oversees Wofford College’s Fine Arts Collection.
About Jiha Moon
Born in DaeGu, South Korea in 1973, Jiha Moon currently lives and works in Tallahassee, Florida. Her gestural paintings, ceramic sculptures, and installations explore fluid identities and the global movement of people and culture.
Moon’s work is included in prestigious collections, including The Asia Society, The High Museum of Art, The Mint Museum, The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Renwick Gallery, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. She is a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation’s Painters & Sculptors Grant. Moon joined the Department of Art at Florida State University as a faculty member in Fall 2023.
