‘The Eight Windows’ is an exhibition that has been mounted to review the fruits of the resident artists’ verve, efforts, and their vision of the world. In terms of subject matter and form the exhibition is divided into two sections: ‘suspended time’ and ‘moving space’. On display in the ‘suspended time’ section encapsulating infinite narratives in a moment are works by Kim Yu Jung, Park Jong Ho, Lim Hyun Kyung, and Cho Tae Gwang, whereas on exhibit at the ‘moving space’ section are works by Shon Kim, Yoo Samu, Yoon Ki Un, and Lee Ju Ri. The exhibition, shared and prepared through constant meetings and discussions, is of significance in that it shows an artist-in resident studio’s positive influence, such as the formation of networks and generation of creative discourses. The eight artists have their own distinctive individuality and methodology, and present another way and perspective for their work through the exhibition.
1. Suspended Time
Kim Yu Jung concentrates on works primarily addressing plants by employing the traditional fresco technique. Kim creates diverse forms by making scratches on the surface before plaster dries, mainly in monochrome. Her trademark subject matter like flower pots and plants connote a somewhat gloomy aspect in our uniform, passive human life.
Park Jong Ho has consistently represented the problems of drawing and representation of images through his painting series. He highlights elements related to the act of ‘drawing’ such as the hand drawing pictures, his appearance from the back, studio scenes, and his easel. The significant hallmarks of his painting are such elements not depicted simply as landscape or things in images reproduced and a gaze split as painting within painting repeating infinitely. He also generates multi-layered viewpoints by employing actual mirrors or inserting the artist himself reflected into a mirror, raising questions over the boundaries between reality and imagination, true and false.
Lim Hyun Kyung unfolds a panoramic landscape through Oriental painting’s thin coloring and deep color pigment, mainly addressing subject matter such as a tree, stone, and bird. While tree, stone, and bird are often visible in traditional Oriental painting, pond, fountain, faucet, and tree protector are urban elements familiar to our times.
Cho Tae Gwang renders utopian landscape with warm color and light. Illustrated from a bird’s eye view by using Google Earth, natural objects such as trees, birds, and floating clouds are placed on a well-arranged green land. Responding sensitively to pain derived from accidents and disasters damaging nature, Cho represents his nostalgia for a world without humans governing nature and a world of ultimate utopia. Although using Google Earth, the landscape he creates is more than an imitation or record of the scenes from Google Earth.
II. Moving space
Shon Kim has long studied the theme ‘untamed line’through diverse experiments with genres like drawing, painting, and experimental animation. The ‘untamed line’ refers to atypical, unfixed new lines and form as accidental results made by his body. After producing drawings he expresses them as ‘moving painting’ by using experimental animation.
Yoo Samu has explored the themes of death and immortality, noting that all solid and massive things in the world will perish. Mainly through painting Yoo depicts animals like deer and horses, game and cartoon characters in vivid colors, and produces three-dimensional sculptural pieces redolent of stuffed animals. In Yoo’s work the human soul and dream freely float, wishing to remain for good.
Yoon Ki Un draws his own hands with ink and thin brushes on hanji (traditional Korean paper). Yoon creates large shapes by repeating or overlapping gesturessuch as rock-paper-scissors and the hand pointingthe direction. For the artist, the hand is anotherlanguage. He pays attention to hand gestures hinting at one’s psychology, situation, and intention.
Focusing on work depicting construction sites, Lee Ju Ri inserts diverse elements into desolate construction sites. Lee was inspired by unpolished raw lines and creative forms rendered unconsciously, found in paintings by developmental disorder children. The reason why Lee adopts a construction site as her work’s background is because the site may work as an imaginary spacewhere such a ‘raw’ state and unconscious elements can be easily set. Deforming and creating realistic subject matter familiar to her, Lee sets severed bodies, various machines, and unidentifiable fragments in a construction site.
- Ji-ye KIM, Curator
*image (left)
untitled, ink and thin brushes on hanji (Korean traiditional paper)
© Ki Un YOON
