Jeon Yejin’s work is always a “work in progress.” How often do we find ourselves fixated on past regrets, endlessly replaying memories or posing hypothetical questions about how we might have changed the past? Or letting worries about an uncertain future consume the present? In contrast, Jeon Yejin focuses entirely on the “here and now,” distancing herself from the weight of past regrets and the anxiety of what is yet to come. By valuing the present moment above a bygone past or an as-yet-unrealized future, she translates this perspective directly into her art. At the center of her practice lie the “moments that shape the present,” where reality overlaps with the artist’s current dreams.

In her work, Jeon Yejin captures various moments in her own life and the lives of those around her, particularly peers of her generation. Rather than depicting dramatic turning points or pivotal events, she highlights seemingly ordinary scenes—chatting with friends, lazing around, or taking a quiet break—as fragments of daily life that resonate with her sense of the present. These moments also include the dreams she is currently envisioning—dreams not merely as vague hopes for the future, but as overlapping reflections of the past, present, and future re-emerging in the artist’s mind. They may reflect the past, embody the present, or hint at a somewhat idealized future. In this way, her conception of the present becomes a crossroads of reality and dream: her immediate self merges with the self she imagines or desires, creating a paradoxical and contradictory space that is “here and now,” yet not exactly “as it is.”