Round Song – Yeonjoo Cho and Nanjoo Lee

Nanjoo Lee and Yeonjoo Cho’s two-person show, Round Song, is a metaphor for the inevitable overlaps of lives.

Like round songs that repeat certain patterns of melodies and lyrics, our lives are often shaped by repetition, reflection, and variations of the lives of others. Through a series of paintings, drawings, and installations, two artists describe connections and disconnections with others, evoking a moment of tenderness, longing, sorrow, and regret. While Nanjoo Lee’s work describes impossible attempts to ‘translate’ objects in the non-linguistic relationship between humans and houseplants, Yeonjoo Cho’s work indicates simultaneous encounters with, and divisions from, others through images of windows and overlaid structures. With different images and formats, the two artists create tunes that reflect misinterpretations, belated understanding and wishes within relationships.

Nanjoo Lee (b.1994) explores the ethical approach to encountering other beings, particularly through linguistic concepts like ‘translation,’ working across painting, moving images, installation, and text. She examines the intersection of translation and care, emphasising how translation entails embracing potential conflicts, understanding, and inevitable misunderstandings in interactions. Living and working in Glasgow, her recent exhibitions include the group show Night Shift (New Glasgow Society, Glasgow, 2024); MFA Degree Show (Florence St, Glasgow, 2023); the Biscuit Tint Festival (Embassy Gallery, Edinburgh, 2022); and The Waves from Different Altitudes (Gallerie Gatchie, Berlin, 2022). Her writing is featured in A Social Process of Unknowing Yourself in Real Time, edited by Kate Briggs and Laura Haynes.
Website: nanjoolee.com Instagram: @nanjoo.lee

Yeonjoo Cho (b.1991) is a visual artist and researcher who explores the intersection of cultural boundaries, challenging the binary categorisation of ‘Oriental’ and Western art. Through her use of painting techniques derived from various cultural roots, her work juxtaposes and overlays dreams and realities, as well as different spaces and times. Cho studied Painting and History of Art at Ewha Womans University and received a doctorate at the Glasgow School of Art with her practice-based research on hybridity and Oriental painting. She currently works in Glasgow, UK, with her ideas on tradition, colonial history, and the idea of home as a transplantable and fluid place. Her work has been exhibited in various cities in the UK and South Korea, including at the Scottish Royal Academy, Edinburgh City Art Centre, Cambridge University, Cheongju Creative Art Studio, Uijeongbu Art Centre, and SeMA, Buk Seoul Museum of Art.
Website: yeonjoocho.com Instagram: @yeonjoo_cho