June 2024 overview
Defining the Tao
Soyoung Kwon's "Shining on me endlessly" consists of landscapes that emphasize the texture of the paint rather than its colour. The smudged and overlapping pigments create the illusion of layers and depth. This, in turn, creates the sensation that the viewer's gaze is penetrating the surface of reality thereby revealing layers of personal narratives. The depth of the field is the depth of truth and life.
The artist tries to capture and analyse the inner world by observing and studying the phenomena of nature. The ultimate goal is unity of the within and without.
Just as Lao-tzu failed to define ‘the Way’, the artist does not aim at conveying a strictly deliniated message. Rather, the focus is on the need for contemplation of inner and outer realities in correlataion to one another.
Looking for the Meaning
Kim Eun-Jin's solo exhibition centers around key words such as 'desire', 'fear', 'sacredness', 'salvation' and 'the world of the unconscious'. The paintings depict the limitations we experience when we tackle different life situations and the resulting conclusion that life is meaningless and irrational.
In the aftermath of these feelings, follows a deep-seated longing for the world of nothingness. Why are we in conflict with the Gods, why can't we achieve a union with them? The artist finds the answer in humans' attempts at encroaching ont he domains of the Gods. By trying to develop more and more God-like powers (ex. AI) we destroy our relationship with the Divine and in that lies our own alienation from Meaning.
The Density of Emotions
Park Young-Hwan's "White" recreates the trajectory of 'time' and life in the shape of a sphere. Dark circles are representative of the present; vivid memories and recent experiences. Ligher circles symbolise those memories that have faded away from our consciousness; those memories that are closing to being dead to us. The windows and frames withing which the balls co-exist stand for linear time fragmented.
With this exhibition, the artist is inviting the viewers to reflect on their own perceptions and the way that the matrix of their minds shapes their experiences. What memory of years ago feels like the event took place only yesterday and which of the things that happened the day before have already completely faded away from our minds? The mind has a way of prioritising and catalogueing whichr eflects our inner values and says something about the structure of our minds.
Lynn Yang's "The Moment" also explores the workings of memory and mind but from a different perspective. Her canvases collect fragments of memory pieces together to form a sequence of perception. Memories live and breathe in us even after the passage of time, and sometimes they are reborn in a new form through the medium of art. The exhibition is an invitation to re-shape our memories, give them a new life, a new form and thus to re-examine them from a new angle.
Meditation
"Perspective" by Yoon Sang-nyol explores the concept of clear consciousness. As an artists stands before an empty canvas, his/her mind is cluttered with ideas while the canvas is white, calm, peaceful, pristine. As he/she begins to work, the scales shift in the opposite direction. The artist's mind becomes clearer and calmer while the canvas fills in with ideas and emotions. Starting to work on a painting inevitably involves getting over fear, the fear of the white space. The calm white canvas poses a challenge for the artist to create. Presenting a painter with an empty canvas is a challenge to the creator within them, a challenge he/she feels obliged to respond to.
The calm off-white colours, the straight lines - both stem from the artist's desire to put the chaos in order, to empty the mind to bring it peace. The pencil lines depicted on the artworks are references to the passage of time; a reference to the scratches on our hearts.
Artist-generated Art
AI and digital technologies are now capable of producing stunning visuals and narratives and this has generated a debate around the place and role of artists in this new digital world. Ahn Du-Jeon's "That Kind of Picture" puts an interesting spin to this debate arguing that just like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so art is in the mind of the viewer.
Painters paint but the interpretation is ultimately left to the one who perceives the artwork on the other side. In that sense, Ahn Du-Jeon asks: "Isn't all art generated outside of the artist, somewhere in the minds of the viewers, anyway?"
Daily dose of sunshine
Lee Soon-Gu's "Flowers Blossom" invites us to rediscover the child within us, to let our hair down and show our unpolished, no-pretence smiles.
Seo Gi Hwan's "Persons in Landscape" (below) takes a different angle on the topic of pure happiness. He invites us on a journey to uncover the beauty of everyday life, of simple life events; to connect with the simplicity of special moments and the specialness of mundane experiences.
ALL June 2024 shows
