Jennifer Seo
O.E.G (cucumbers), 2023
Polymer clay & wire
Courtesy of the artist
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This work is on loan for the exhibition, Living Here, at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, June 20 - December 20, 2025

The impact of this artwork depends on the relationship between its title and the sculpted slices of fake cucumber. When Jennifer Seo says the Korean word for cucumber (오이) out loud, she notices that it sounds like the English letters O.E.G. With O.E.G. (cucumbers), she creates a new word that is neither English nor Korean, but the noise of meaning migrating between the two languages—a phenomenon that materializes out of a diasporic sensitivity to difference. Her cucumber slices stand out from the wall on thin wires, making them seem more vulnerable than they would if they were positioned securely on a shelf or a pedestal. Seo’s practice as a whole focuses on fragility and disappearance. Her most recent artworks (not featured in Living Here) are delicate paper models of objects she finds in old family photographs. “Recreating these objects is a study of my family that I have always felt disconnected from, but cherish,” she writes. O.E.G. (cucumbers) is filled with similar feelings of connection and slippage.