september 2024 overview
"Memories of a living being" by Chang InJun takes us on a journey to healing where what matters is the process, not the final destination. His canvases depict the characters int he process of trying to deconstruct an experience out of the fragments left in their memory. The events are not clearly defines, images are distorted, movements are mixed with feelings, actions and smudged with intent. Somewhere in this mixture we arrive at artificial memories, an entirely new construct made up of everythung thus far mentioned. And this final product is what we have to overcome, to cope with, to resolve or live with.
The artist uses earthy, off-white colours to strip the emotion from the process and focus on the outlines, the shapes and the lack thereof. This calming of the canvas and of the mind is one of the most representative features of contemporary Korean art, best articulated in the Dansaekhwa movement.
The two artists below - Lee Hee Young and Cho So-Hee - continue the topic of exploring the mind and its workings but add their own angles to the story. In Lee Hee Young's work, the mind is a colourful explosion, a place of noise and movement. The dynamism of our thoughts, coloured by feelings, makes it hard to tidy the mind. At any given moment, our brains have to process a lot of information coming in from various stimulus and these bits and pieces of information come with many other symbols and stories associated with them. The end result of this is a canvas of overlapping ideas and processes.
In contrast, Cho So-Hee presents our journey through life as a process of sorting, delineating and arranging our existence across rational lines.. Her "Words, images, letters with lyricism" exhibition consists of artworks made of translucent silk cloth and thin paper, all in simple easy on the eyes colours. The process of writing a letter requires us to put our thoughts in order, to crystalise an idea of what we want to say - in this process is a reference to the Buddhist practice of meditation which in and of itself aims to quiet down the mind, a place with the tendency to become noisy.
Cha Myung-Hi's "The Being Remembered" is a modern attempt to reconcile Eastern and Western traditions. The abstract paintings make references to calligraphy and ink landscapes without being either. The canvases are the intersection of modern, Western Abstraction and classic Eastern literati calligraphy
Moon Hyeongtae's "Perfect picture" consists of over 50 new artworks which dive deeper into the artist's world. He explores the essence of life through relationships, memories and fairytales. Relationships are a reflection of who we are now, memories send us back to who we were in the past and fairytales show something of what we hope to become in the future.
Examining reality through unusual angles, using chuncky blocks to construct his characters - these are all technical means which suggest that sometimes "perfect picture" is not "picture perfect"; sometimes warm enough is perfect, cosy enough is perfect.
ALL september 2024 shows
