The Romantic artists expressed their experiences of harmonious relationships between earth and spirit through idealised images of landscape. The Social Realists challenged the practice of depicting spiritual harmonies in this way, but they did not change the capacity of human beings to participate in such harmonies. This capacity simply moved from an outward projection to an exploration of its inward energies. Rather than being expressed through landscape, it was expressed through symbols. The great Expressionists like Kandinsky, Klee and Miro established this process as one of the great movements of Modernism. Because the experience is both personal and universal, it continues to be as valid now as it was then. Each artist presents the fusion of these two dimensions through his or her own particular practice. It is in this tradition of fusing the personal and the universal that the work of Joung Joon finds its place.
Submerged Spirituality shows geometric shapes floating in fields of colour. As a composition, it is reminiscent of ancient, alchemical representations of heaven, earth and hell. In such representations, hell is symbolised by a semi-circle at the bottom, upward and downward triangles in the middle symbolise human beings pulled in both directions and a luminous circle at the top represents heaven. In Juong Joon's painting the demarcations are not so simple. A semi-circle at the bottom contains none of the darkness of hell. It radiates with light. The triangle in the middle is not distributed evenly between the lower and the upper regions, as in the old diagrams. The section facing downwards is only a shadow of the blue triangle, which rises upwards. The 'circle' of heaven is in the form of a 'halo', and repeats the radiant light that emanates from the lower semi-circle.
These variations on an ancient belief system present a contemporary way of seeing the human condition. The radiant hemisphere represents not hell but human consciousness submerged in a deep sea. Light, then, radiates from within the lower dimensions of human consciousness, and there is always hope that emergence of a higher consciousness possible.
Peaceful Chakra: The spiritual energy within human consciousness resides in the chakras. These are invisible 'force-centres' within the human body, and are represented by circles of light. Traditionally, they surround the spine in an ascending and expanding formation. The lower ones represent physical awareness, while the higher ones represent the urge towards cosmic consciousness. In Joung Joon’s painting this hierarchy is not important. The chakras are of various sizes and colours, and they all 'float' together on the one level.
Joung Joon explains that in a cluster of smaller circles the green represents openness and truth, the sapphire and blue are for communication and the pink is for love and self acceptance. A small red circle represents ancient wisdom. Larger yellow and orange circles are for sunshine and enjoyment. The 'message' then, is that human qualities such as truth and love, combined with a little wisdom, and submitted to a calm, but vibrating 'spiritual sea' can produce not only enlightenment but also healing. Joung Joon would like her viewers to experience this healing through the energies within her painting.
Quantum Healing is also about the healing power of art. Here, Joung Joon describes a red candelabra or tree shape as a base chakra, which connects with a 'warm hearted' green chakra in the context of a spiritual, majenta coloured 'sea'. This combination of the human and the spiritual energises the circular shaped chakras. They rise, float and vibrate. At the same time, they make connections like the cells in a human body. Such interactions between the physical and the spiritual can take place, Joung Joon suggests, during meditation.
Communication through Art shows the chakras floating in a sea of brilliant colours. The dominant colours are red, green and yellow. The coloured shapes float freely, but each one contains a small circle of colour from another. This forms an intricate network of connections. A red shape represents earth and wisdom. It contains a yellow circle, which seems to have been taken from a large yellow shape. This combines wisdom with joy. Red and yellow circles in the green shape combine earthly wisdom with the fertility of the green. The shapes themselves fit together like the pieces of a jig-saw. The combination of irregular shapes and regular circular shapes suggests a coming together of mind and body, or intellect and spirit. As an intricate pattern it suggests a complexity of relationships, which vibrate and bring the physical and the spiritual together.