As a student, Diana Nicholette Jeon experimented with the development process, for example, by fixing baby powder on the acetate. At the start of the digital age, she started experimenting with image editing. For her series Self-Exposure, she made self-portraits with the iPhone, on which she painted digitally and physically. Working with different art media, the core of her art remains photography, commenting with expressive self-portraits on the American view on the female identity.

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Her series Self-Exposure began during her studies in Honolulu. Being married and having a child, Jeon had no time to interact with younger fellow students. "I was a lot on my own. I had my toddler, and my husband was a lot from home for work. Whenever I needed a model, I photographed myself."

Diana Nicholette Jeon took self-portraits with different iPhones. Sometimes she made videos of herself and extracted a frame with motion blur. "When shooting video, I can isolate a frame and export it as an image. The movement in the video becomes a blurry image. I prefer a blurred image, instead of a perfectly focused one. But when I need a sharp portrait of myself, I work with the front camera of the iPhone, mounted on a tripod."

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Image manipulation

Jeon taught Digital Art, Digital Imaging, Motion Graphics, and Digital Multimedia at various universities in Hawaii. In 2013, she received an iPad for her work, which she immediately used for her new artworks. A whole new world unfolded when she discovered the iPad editing app ProCreate. For her series Self-Expression, she started experimenting with image manipulation in her photographs. When she started working with ProCreate, she decided not only to merge different photos of herself but also to draw in the image itself. "With the use of the iPad and ProCreate, I combine different photographs and manipulate the image for picturing my message. Suddenly, I had a digital drawing surface, which I could paint over these creatures."

After digitally editing the image, she prints the photos on Hahnemühle Rag paper, but after the image processing and printing, the process is not ready yet. Then, she applies three or four layers of wax to the print. Between the layers, she applies charcoal, pencil, oil chalk, and paint. There is a limited edition of each piece, as each edition is unique because of the physical after-treatment.

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"First, I pictured myself as a younger version, but my artworks revealed a deeper meaning

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The American woman

Diana Nicholette Jeon's photos treat different aspects of herself, at least, which is what she thought. But later, she discovered that there was a further layer of meaning. "First, I pictured myself as a younger version, but my artworks revealed a deeper meaning. The social essence of my work is universal and not just about myself."

Nicholette Jeon's work is a reflection of contemporary women in American society. "My work is a reaction on what is expected from the American woman; that she is beautiful, a perfect mother, and in possession of a good career. But it is impossible to be perfect in everything. It is a kind of me too, but without sexual abuse. The personal situations I create typically speak for all American women who react against the high expectations of society."

Social commentary

In Self-Exposure, there is a thin line between reality and image manipulation, but also between searching for her private emotions and commentary on society. Each image is not only an introspective and expressive reflection on her own personality but also a criticism of the social expectations of American women. The characters or creatures Diana Nicholette Joan creates, express the expectations she encounters. Once she has had to deal with emotional abuse. "Abuse is usually about domestic violence, but in my case, I was the victim of an emotional abuser. In this case, you cannot see the traumatic consequences in someone's appearance, because there are no scratches or scars. Making art is a way for me to visualize that experience. I use my work to process my emotions about a specific event or series of events and to give those emotions a voice so that others can hear them too."

The different aspects of her experiences merge into different characters. Every photo is different and has a different story, but everything has a relationship with the main theme: the ideals of American society regarding women. "In the title picture, I am not a feminist girl. I have created a kind of Jacky Kennedy, but with pussy ears. This photo seems more distant than the other photographs. It's about the feminists of the past and the women of today. If I look at some younger women now, they are not feminists at all. They have the wrong perception of feminists as lesbians or as male women. But feminism has created freedom for modern women of this age. So, this freedom offers women the opportunity to keep their job when they are married, but also that they do not have to get married and that you can have sex without being married unless you are heavily religious. All these things stemmed from the women's movement. With the photo, I am not a feminist, I tried to depict a non-activist feminist, but a woman lives in freedom."

Honolulu, HI-based artist Diana Nicholette Jeon spent 10 years working in high tech before returning to school to pursue her first love, art. Perhaps due to her experiences working in California's Silicon Valley, she fell in love with Photoshop when she first encountered it in 1994. In school, she gravitated immediately to digital tools, while still pursuing training in traditional media. She attended the University of Hawaii where she received a BA in Studio Art (2003) then was awarded her MFA in Imaging and Digital Art from the University of Maryland at Baltimore County (2006.) She spent seven years teaching digital imaging and motion graphics at the college level in Hawaii before she decided to plunge into producing her art on a full-time basis.

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Jeon's work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States and Europe. She has solo exhibitions at the Honolulu Museum of Art as well as A Smith Gallery (TX), Truth and Beauty (BC Canada). Other her work has been seen  include the Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, the Honolulu Museum of Art, the San Diego Art Institute, the Hawaii State Art Museum, Soho Photo,  and Tethys Gallery.

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She has received multiple awards for her work including: Overall Winner, Cell Phone Category Winner, five category Runner-ups and one Honorable Mention in the 11th Julia Margaret Cameron awards; four Recognition Purchase Awards from the Hawaii State Foundation of Art and Culture; three Silver awards in the 2018 Moscow International Foto Awards, Finalist in the 10th Julia Margaret Cameron awards as well as in two categories in the 2016 Pollux Awards; 1st Place at the 5th Annual Mobile Photo Awards.

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Jeon’s art has been featured in a wide array of publications, including Gente di Fotografia,  Shots magazine, the OD Review, the Huffington Post, Lens Culture, In the In-Between, The Hand, Don't Take Pictures, Binfeng Space Art/Culture magazine, PhotoPhore, Corriere della Sera, L’arena and the Honolulu Star Advertiser.

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Her works are in many public and private collections, including the permanent collection of the State of Hawaii Art in Public Places program, the International Printing Museum, the Albert O. Kuhn Library Special Collections Department at University of Maryland Baltimore County, and Haverford College.

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‍www.diananicholettejeon.com