The Armory Show: Javits Center, New York City

Baert Gallery is pleased to present new paintings by Ji Won Cha at the Armory Show 2025.

Show Dates & Times
Thursday, September 4, 2025: VIP Preview, 11 am-8 pm
Friday, September 5, 2025: 11 am–7 pm
Saturday, September 6, 2025: 11 am–7 pm
Sunday, September 7, 2025: 11 am–6 pm

Location

Booth P42
Javits Center
429 11th Ave
New York, NY 10001

Cha’s vibrant paintings conjure a sublime fluctuation that are at once experienced very quickly and also in slow motion. There is a controlled chaos present as some parts of the canvas are exhibited in turbulence, other parts deliberately in flux. Cha’s mastery of her unique technique lets the viewer into a fluid landscape which requires taming; generating logic and its own world. Using images of nature, such as striking flowers and tree branches as her starting point, the paintings evolve to take on a form of their own, resembling more an abstract energy that articulates intense emotion and exquisite craft. 

There are microcosms within this world that require varying proportions, moving between the macro and the micro to create transformations that bleed into one another. Working within what she defines as the ‘Anxious Sublime’, Ji Won’s work is an inquiry into time. Cha explores the conundrum of our contemporary moment in which the future and past invade the present, both diminishing the moment into induced stress, while intoxicating our imagination with future fantasies. From this paradox, the paintings present both mesmerizing visions of another world and a menacing murmur underneath the surface.

Ji Won Cha (b. 1997, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea) lives and works in London. She earned her BFA in Painting from RISD and her MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art. Recent exhibitions include The Torrent and the Fold, LBF Contemporary, London (2025), A Journey into the Unknown, Haricot Gallery, London (2025), A Third Hand, Hurst Contemporary, London (2025), An Eternity from Now, Baert Gallery, Los Angeles (2024), Memory Concourse, Thierry Goldberg Gallery, NYC (2024), Transcendence, Gate 45, Dubai, UAE (2023), Now Introducing, Studio West Gallery, London, UK (2023), Summer Fling, L.U.P.O.-Lorenzelli Projects, Milan, Italy (2023), and the two-person show Dungeons and Daydreams with Alya Hatta at Wilder Gallery, London (2023). In 2024, she was shortlisted for the Artsy foundations prize, and in 2023, she was shortlisted for the Jackson’s Painting Prize.