The exhibition, Girls' Generation, introduces four women artists - Soyeon Kim, Jin Ju Lee, Kyungwon Moon and Ja-Hyuk Yim, from Korea. The title of the exhibition arises from one of the most famous K-pop stars, Girls' Generation, an icon which represents contemporary pop culture in Korea. In the context of contemporary art, the exhibition Girls' Generation invites female artists who are working actively, showing their creative power in the art world.

The exhibition Girls' Generation does not address cliché of feminism art or female beauty. Rather, it aims to focus on the diversities of "sensibility, senses, attitude towards art practices, and methodology of art" as women artists in Korean contemporary art. The artists are not only girls per se, but artists categorized based on biological difference from men. They are the artists with senses and sensibilities, which exist around us in everyday life.

Soyeon Kim’s work evokes surreal scenes as in a dream or unconsciousness. Creating strange and odd atmospheres by juxtaposing realities of images and the irrationality of the context the images are placed, Kim depicts an indefinite inner state of mind and brings out anxiety and fear. In her work, fragments of images are combined to create shapes such as a heart with the Virgin Mary, one that relieves tension and anxiety as well as revealing a process of recovery.

In Jin Ju Lee’s paintings, experiences, feelings and memories are played out on the canvas, implying everything in which they could be interpreted. We are able to witness the artist’s life, how she is similar to a construction laborer working to make ends meet, where reasons and emotions stand for bricks and stones. Her process of gathering memories and disheveling them at will is a representation of her banal and unique character.

Kyungwon Moon's series of paintings, Operant Conditioning, drawn free-hand, are festive interactions of lines and planes, displaying her deft and lavish drawing process. The title, Operant Conditioning, is a term in behavioral psychology explaining the occurrence and form of human behavior, modified by reward and punishment. The environment of the vines growing in a greenhouse suggests a controlled system that offers conditions that are irresistible to the plants inside, and the vines form an artificial net that ensnares them. It can be seen as a metaphor of a system that imprisons the artist, as well as many of us today.

Drawing as a medium for Ja-Hyuk Yim is a mundane everyday task that gives the artist visual discoveries and freedom of thinking. Using paper and pen as antennas, she looks out and feels the world. Momentary thoughts and fractions of images begin as a line that tells a story. For Yim, drawing is not only a way of expression but also an attitude of depicting images. With eyes and hands in collaboration, her form of drawing is only determined by a way of making an unrefined vivid image.

With Korean culture being introduced as successfully packaged pop culture in Singapore, the exhibition Girls' Generation will give the audience a chance to experience a diverse aspect of Korean contemporary culture.

Image: © Moon Kyungwon