Cho Sohee's work has been started with her interest in objects which are around us, something in the specific private area. She's taken the stuff in ordinary place where we normally pays no attention to and taken photographs of them one by one, then displayed each photo in an transparent frame which is clearly visible on both sides, front and back. Via the way she looks at the things found from the belongings of personal space and digs them out in very detailed ways with the micro perspective of view, we've been able to discover the significant meaning of minor things that have been neglected. The previous works have been developed to the form of filling space out installing works. By her intensive and repeatable labor, the stuff that is light, fragile, weightless and just before being thrown away becomes something shaped and weighted. As time goes by, the works are getting accumulated with her continuous labor and it's becoming heavier. Cho Sohee's work presents as the minor things that seem insignificant are accumulated with time, it becomes a meaningful existence.
This exhibition 'Thread-span' is in the extension of her previous works. In the work <Letter>, there are images consisted of certain works on a tissue in a transparent envelope. These words are often what she repeatedly thinks of, or spontaneously comes up with and those words are typed repeatedly. Letter is the commutation tool that has the purpose and receiver. However, the original function's lost as she makes the letter without the recipient, and piles up them so that they become new existence that belongs to no-where. In <Hand>, by also her repetitive labor, a thread has been woven and it finally has the shape of a hand. It indirectly shows the most direct part of contacting the world is hands and feet when the thoughts and intentions are exposed to the outside world. And the repetition of her action forms the shape and it becomes a huge existence that isn't completely filled but also emptied. Because of this, the lightness and heaviness are coexisted in her work.
Also in the works <The poetics of unscientific candlelight>,<mountain>,<river>,and <Art and Gear (the sin committed by tongue / the Buddhist term)>, we are able to glimpse into the artist's notion about art. In <The poetics of unscientific candlelight>, the lamp that fully equipped with the electrical cord is lit by candle, not by the electric light. In the video works <mountain> and <river>, she's doing trivialities such as folding a paper boat on a river or blows a ballon and let it go in the sky in massive nature. <Art and Gear (the sin committed by tongue)> quoted the poetry <Poetry and Gear (the sin committed by tongue)> replacing the word "Poetry" to "Art" and typed segmented words on each tissue that becomes a book and it's read by the video work.
Cho Sohee simply repeats the labor-intensive work and uses very light and trivial things and builds up a huge presence. It means the things that macroscopic or microscopic don't exist separately but are in gear. Thus, time is an important factor to her and her notion is reproduced in her work by the labor-intensive way of working. Such processes, iterative process of weaving a thread, the continuous action of typing on tissues or thin pieces of paper, are the ways of exposing a new existence and the accumulation of time authorizing new meanings to the minor things, making contradictory elements to coexist.
About the Artist
Cho Sohee studied Plastic art at University of Paris I and she has exhibited widely, both nationally internationally in solo and group exhibitions including Seogyeong Gallery in 1996, <Ji-Young's wardrobe> at Kumsan Gallery in 2002, <Deux chambers a cote> at Brain factory in 2005, <Voyage> at the window gallery of Hyun-Dae in 2006 and many parts of Europe including France, Spain and Italy. Her works are in various collection,s including Galeria CHARPA in Valencia, Spain, La Roche in Belgium, Eglise Lutherienne de Paris in Paris. She has awarded Quasart in 2004, Salon de Montrouge in 2005 in France.
