If there’s a feeling that could sum up the whiplash of living online and off, it might be cognitive dissonance. This deep sense of unease emerges when our actions and beliefs don’t align or when something we’d previously thought true is proven false. Psychology tells us that the constructive way to deal with this unwanted feeling is to incorporate the new information into our lives, instead of pretending it doesn’t exist or continuing to believe something inaccurate.
In an era of AI slop and conspiracy theories ruling the highest levels of government, cognitive dissonance will likely be a fixture of contemporary life for the foreseeable future. It’s also an apt title for a new body of work by Los Angeles-based artist Seonna Hong opening this month at Hashimoto Contemporary.
Hong, whose work in television and feature animation has won her an Emmy, is best known for her layered, autobiographical paintings. Abstract landscapes emerge through visible brushstrokes sweeping across the canvas, with tiny rainbows and spindly, barren trees dotting the scenes. The artist always adds figures last, rendering them in plain, monochromatic dresses with no discernible facial features.
In this new body of work, we witness tender moments of care and reciprocity amid environments riddled by unknown disasters. Hong frequently cites the growing threat of the climate crisis as a central point of her practice, and while environmental collapse is present in these new pieces, the artist also touches on the political situation in the U.S. and global struggles for life and dignity.
“The Collision of Truths” and “Laotong” both feature women with clenched fists that signal a clear desire to fight, while other paintings portray a sense of community and compassion. “Eudaimonia,” for example, depicts a trio holding hands while climbing a steep, slippery incline. The title is an ancient Greek word that means the “highest human good,” a concept that seems to ground much of Hong’s new work.
Like earlier paintings, those in Cognitive Dissonance play with contradictions: abstraction and figuration, the temporary and enduring, and desolation and care. But where Hong has previously presented environments as both keepers of memory and endless sites of possibility, these pieces feel more urgent, suggesting that when loss and hardship are omnipresent, we’ll need to rely on our bonds with each other to carry us through.
Cognitive Dissonance runs from December 13 to January 10 in New York. Follow Hong’s work on Instagram.
