For artist Cho Hae-Ree a moment of time is nothing but a trace of disappearance. In her work this is depicted by applying ink on traditional Korean paper (Hanji). The ethereal nature of existence is seen as similar to the nature of sounds. Music is an art in which the components (the notes) disappear in time. Just like a melody which accumulates variations over time so the artist applies layer upon layer of ink over the Hanji to translate the same concept from one artistic medium to another. To achieve that, she employs Jeongganbo (井間譜), a traditional system of Korean musical notation. Within the framework of the tradition, each square unit—jeonggan, represented by the character “井”—contains a sense of endurance and rhythmic beat.
Yoon Wee-Dong invite us to see his images not as symbols conveying cryptic meanings but as records of accumulated time and the accumulated impact of conditions on matter. For him, at some point in his artistic journey images as reflections of real objects stopped bringing creative satisfaction. Then, he turned to the concept of accumulation as the key idea behind life - as experiences accumulate, this piling of new conditions paves the way for the arrival of the next state of things. Enduring the passage of time and events is what leads us to the next state, what transforms us and ultimately, leads to a reset of the entire cycle.
In "Sound Painting" artist Kim Soo-Chul also attempts to translate sound into painting. The artist is the composer behind the official music of the 1986 Asian Games and the Music Director of the Seoul Olympics of 1988. In this exhibition which spans artworks created over the past 50 years, the artist actively tries to establish backward and forward links between the two art forms - music and painting; between the two artistic languages - that of music and that of colours and shapes.
Kim Han-Sa’s "Color in the Boundary" focuses on color as emerging at the border between light and an object's surface. She uses ceramics and glass as her mediums and employs their texture to intensify the colors. In a sense, the texture of the surface is seen as playing an important role in how the actual color is perceived and it is this thin "boundary" that the artist is interested in drawing our attention to.
At a first glance, Kim Su-Ji's "Invisible Trace" is an attempt at collages where two different images are joined to create a new reality. But these two "realities" are not randomly chosen - they are the external form and the inner meaning of a situation. A joint picture of the seen and unseen in every interaction, every life event, every person we meet. There is always a duality at play - what we see and what remains hidden; the brief exchange and the long-term dynamic. In theory, we know of this duality but how often do we really perceive life events through this prism?
Artist Jeong Daun "paints" using fabric pieces. His artworks resemble stitched pieces of cloth a bit like a tablecloth or a duvet. These fabric drawings create the feeling of accumulated history and experiences as well as of warmth and cozy home environment. In a way, cloth is one of those mediums that speaks volumes in and of itself regardless of what is actually depicted on it. Fabric drawings instantly take us to a place of warm blankets and childhood memories. It is a feminine medium as historically, women have been in charge of working with it. It is not a pure, new surface but rather something already permeated with its own memories and choices. The artist has collaborated with global brands such as UNIQLO, Hunter, Tom Ford Beauty, Maison Margiela, Starbucks and Louis Vuitton; and has shown her work in Belgium, Taiwan, the Netherlands, and China.
Kim Won-Keun’s "Chun-Shik's Spring" (Chun-Shik is a person's name) puts the spotlight on ordinary people, those "supporting characters" that stay in the periphery of big events. His exhibition is a love letter to ordinary life, to the value of ordinary existence. In today's culture, we tend to be told that someone is valuable as a human being only if they make big decisions that concern the destiny of humanity. This exhibition and the character Chun-Shik is an opposition to that idea; a love letter to being content with making only a small contribution to the life of your community and your immediate environment.
