Gallery Korea presents the exhibition "Attributes"
January 28 - February 20, 2009(Closed on February 16 for President's Day)
Gallery Korea of Korean Cultural Service NY
Wednesday, January 28, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
The Korean Cultural Service New York presents the exhibition "Attributes", held from January 28th to February 20th, 2009 at Gallery Korea. The opening reception will be held at Gallery Korea, located within the Korean Cultural Service NY from 6:00pm to 8:00pm on Wednesday, January 28, 2009. Attributes is the first show from the finalists of ‘Call For Artists 2009’ with Jeremiah Teipen(installation), Hyun Kyung Ryu(paintings), Tai Hwa Goh(print), Joo Yeon Woo(installation), Yoonhye Park(video) and Jungsun Park(video).
Working with mixed media, painting, prints and video, the artists comment on natural or environments and the relationship of environment with the ego. The work contains mixed visions of private and universal worlds, having a mythical atmosphere in a variety of formal languages. The word ‘attributes’ refer to medium, provenance, title of space, the objects associated and many more meanings depending on the context. The audience will see what each artist tries to indicate through their work.
Jeremiah Teipen's sculptural pieces "Fullerenes and other natural phenomena" at first glance, emulates a look of natural forms such as plants and forests. In fact, the whole image can be translated into the microscopic or macroscopic scales of biological creatures found on earth. It could be read as carbon molecules, nerve cells, and human figures, architectural or even geographical formations. The construction made of artificial material such as light-emitting diodes, electric wire and microcontrollers sends the message of growth and destruction, expansion and contraction. Teipen says, "This synthesis of the spatiotemporal attributes of nature creates a form resembling an inverted flora or suspended root system….creating a constellation of energy that artificially transcends the boundaries of the natural world."
Tae Hwa Koh’s “Suspicious Seeds” series are a group of evocative mixed media prints. Koh puts layering of prints, with each layer different printing type of intaglio or silkscreen, on thin Korean paper(Soon-ji). The waxed papers both efface and transmit the images beneath, thus “mimicking the translucent, impenetrable, and vulnerability of the body (i.e. skin) but at the same time recoverable and rather strong selfness” according to Tae Hwa Koh. Each work contains both seeds and flowers floating on the unidentifiable background, which is to be perceived as the earthly bed or the abyss. For Koh, the process of making art is finding her own identity. The layers signify a psychological process of her body; the accumulation of her memories and experiences.
Joo Yeon Woo's photo installation “Drinking your Surroundings” was inspired by the environment which the artist interacts with. 45 digital photographs will be installed on the wall and the entire dimension will be 5 feet wide and 1.2 feet in height. Each photograph represents a different place in which she lived in the past six years. She collected and has positioned small photos of buildings within glasses filled with water. The whole collection of images have become equivalent to her private archive. The works “embody my desire to come to terms with my origins and to create an artistic archive of my nomadic life style”, says Woo.
Hyun Kyung Ryu's “Without trace” is comprised of 50 mixed media paintings, each measuring 20x20 cm. Born in Gyeong-ju, South Korea, Ryu grew up in a region abundant with relics from the old Shilla dynasty. Ryu’s childhood experience of playing at a museum and ancient tombs provided her with the painterly expression resembling the heritage of her ancestors. For example, the rustic surface of the paintings reminds one of the inside of the royal tombs. Ryu was also inspired by the book, Zen Life, written by Jung Sung Bon. The title of Ryu’s work indicates the essential idea of Zen life; all living creatures do not make the trace in nature and for human beings, it means to do their best in the present and not to focus on honor, authority or name.
Two self performing video pieces mention the materialistic and psychological relationship between the self and the environment. Yoonhye Park's single channel video, “Untitled” (Working Girl Series), featuring the artist’s own performance against the horizon. This minimal and long duration of performance shows the artist herself in a uniform, trying to wipe away the horizon line. The body, interacting with the space, becomes a metaphor of the society and the artist wants to examine the complexities of the human condition in contemporary society. Jungsun Park's video “Breathe” and “Chewing Gum” focus on environmental substances. In each video, she takes in air and gum endlessly. This act of altering or adding new materials is an expression of her psychological and emotional states in a given space.
Gallery hours are 10:00am to 5:00pm, Monday through Friday. For more information, contact Yu Jin Hwang, curator of Gallery Korea, Korean Cultural Service NY at (212) 759-9550 or nyarts@koreanculture.org.