Jiha Moon

Sep 27, 2025 - Dec 21, 2025
Ten Moon

Ten Moon marks a moment of transition for artist Jiha Moon. Following her relocation from Atlanta—her longtime American home—to Tallahassee three years ago, Moon has embraced a new environment, and her visual language has evolved in response. This exhibition captures that evolution, offering viewers a glimpse into her ongoing transformation.

Moon’s broader studio practice centers on multilayered paintings, ceramic sculptures, and mixed-media works. Drawing from Korean visual traditions, American pop culture, and digital iconography, she constructs a vibrant visual language that explores fluid identities and the global circulation of cultures. These references and motifs take shape in her Shrine series, the centerpiece of Ten Moon. In this body of work, paintings and ceramic objects converge within container-like frames—minimalist architectural forms that serve as three-dimensional stages, intimate spaces where imagined dreams unfold. In the latest iteration, Moon introduces circular panels fitted with shelves, embedding ceramic objects within a moonlike pictorial field. Vessels, dragons, peaches, banana peels, clouds, and hybrid limbs float and interact with painted imagery, blurring the boundaries between object and image, sculpture and painting. 

Moon’s work occupies a liminal space—between the material and the fleeting. Familiar objects like books, houseplants, and furniture share space with ephemeral elements like mist, breath, and memory. This interplay reflects the layered complexity of personal history, emotional resonance, migration, and cultural memory. “This series is a meditation on that boundary,” she says, “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.” Each piece offers a meditation on in-betweenness: where the familiar collides with the surreal, and individual experience merges with collective history.

The exhibition’s title, Ten Moon, reflects Moon’s contemplation of the imperfect, layered nature of being human. “We are born that way—and we remain that way,” she notes. For her, the moon serves as a powerful symbol of “otherness.” Often associated with shadow, mystery, and yin energy, the moon has long been viewed as passive or negative. But Moon reimagines it. “We are all born of our mothers,” she reflects. “As a child, I made wishes to the full moon in the night sky. I still do.” Through Ten Moon, she reclaims the moon’s quiet, cyclical force as a symbol of hope, resilience, and transformation

Bios

Jiha Moon

Jiha Moon (b. 1973) was born in DaeGu, South Korea, and 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. “I am a cartographer of cultures and an icon maker in my lucid worlds,” she says.

Moon draws from a wide range of influences, including Eastern and Western art histories, Korean temple paintings and folk traditions, popular culture, internet emojis and icons, and product packaging from around the world. She often transforms and distorts these visual languages, making them both unrecognizable and strangely familiar at the same time.

Her work is included in the collections of 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, among others.

She is a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow and a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation's Painters & Sculptors Grant. Her mid-career survey exhibition, Double Welcome: Most Everyone’s Mad Here, organized by the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art and the Taubman Museum, toured more than 15 museums across the U.S.

Moon joined the Department of Art at Florida State University as a faculty member in Fall 2023.

Location

Gallery 3

gallery map

Curators

Current Exhibitions

Jun 21, 2025 - Sep 7, 2025

SUBLIME

SUBLIME

 Sep 27, 2025 - Dec 21, 2025

Shaping Identity

Korean Print in Diaspora
See What's On

Related Events

September 27 / 2:00pm Contemporary Talks

Curator Talk with Youmi Efurd

with a Special Performance by Atlanta Korean Cultural Center (AKCC)

Free

Join us for a special curator talk with Youmi Efurd, curator of the Richardson Family Art Museum at Wofford College, as she discusses two exhibitions currently on view: Shaping Identity: Korean Print in Diaspora and Ten Moon by Jiha Moon. Shaping Identity explores the relationship between cultural heritage, migration, and identity through the lens of printmaking. Featuring works by Tschang Yeul Kim, Kakyoung Lee, U-fan Lee, Jiha Moon, Yoonmi Nam, Nam June Paik, Jean Shin, Joo Yeon Woo, and Jayoung Yoon, the exhibition highlights how Korean and diasporic artists have used printmaking to navigate traditions, hybridity, and belonging across generations. Ten Moon presents a new body of work by Jiha Moon that reflects her transition from Atlanta to Tallahassee and her ongoing exploration of identity, memory, and transformation. Incorporating paintings, ceramics, and mixed media, Moon blends Korean folk traditions, American pop culture, and digital imagery into a vibrant, dreamlike language of resilience and renewal. Efurd will share insights into the curatorial vision behind these exhibitions and discuss how they together reflect themes of cultural continuity, migration, and the evolution of identity. To close the event, the Atlanta Korean Cultural Center (AKCC) will present a Nanta performance, a high-energy percussion show that celebrates Korean culture and traditions through rhythm and movement. Founded in 2008 by HyunSuk Yang, AKCC has performed at national, state, and local festivals with a mission to build community connections through performing arts and education. This event is free and open to the public.

September 27 / 12:00pm Contemporary Talks

Artist Talk with Jiha Moon

Free

Join us for a conversation with Jiha Moon, acclaimed artist and 2023 Guggenheim Fellow, as she reflects on her exhibition Ten Moon and her evolving practice. After relocating from Atlanta to Tallahassee, Moon’s work has shifted to embrace new environments and influences. Ten Moon features her signature blend of paintings, ceramics, and mixed-media works that draw from Korean folk traditions, American pop culture, and digital iconography. At its center is the Shrine series, where paintings and ceramic objects merge into intimate, dreamlike spaces exploring memory, identity, and transformation. Moon will share insights into her practice, the symbolism of the moon as a marker of resilience and change, and her exploration of in-betweenness—where the familiar meets the surreal. Her work is held in major collections including the Hirshhorn, the High Museum of Art, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. This event is free and open to the public.

Support Atlanta Contemporary

Make a gift to help keep Atlanta Contemporary free, safe, and open to all.

Donate Today Become A Member
Imported Layers Created with Sketch.

We encourage you to share your images using #atlantacontemporary. Read our full photography policy.