HANMI GALLERY 8TH INTERIM EXHIBITION

The Traces: collective surroundings

Friday 25th November – Friday 9th December

Hanmi Gallery is pleased to present its 8th interim exhibition ‘The Traces: collective

surroundings’, works by London based Korean artists Yoonsuk Choi, Jinhee Park

and Seoyeoung Won. Inspired by daily life and objects, the artists showcase a series

of works through synchronic depiction.

The aesthetic nature of daily life and objects found and captured by artists has been

a great source of creativity for a long time. Not merely contemporary art, but also a

number of preceding works of the 1960s and 1970s have shown the recognition and

reification of ordinary life and objects. Such a trend in the art world was even more

accelerated by the recent immersion in the pleasure of popular culture and changes

in perception towards our surroundings.

‘The Traces: collective surroundings’ invites the audience to share the artists’ inward

gaze and intriguing translations of surroundings. As often related, contemporary art

creation does not seem to require canonical experiences of radical social isolation

and private revolt by artists. It has been rather displaced by the fragmentation of

contemporaneity with diverse translations and appreciation of what surrounds us. We

may now empirically inhabit the synchronic rather than diachronic. Our visual

language is today dominated by the thematic of temporality.

The featured artists work on the theme of ‘the traces of every day and everything’.

They embrace and collect the easily forgettable moments of repetitive routine,

evaporable images and beauty of daily life and objects. The works show serenity,

unique and vibrant aspects of daily life. These extraordinaries of the ordinaries

refreshingly change the way in which we look at surroundings and share the fun in

finding such aspects.

(Left) Mass of The Year 2010, A Collection of Receipt for One Year, 24 cm Diameter, 2011

(Right) 1073, Pen on Paper, 29.7 x 21 cm, 2011

Yoonsuk Choi works on the notion of time and its fragments through various

mediums. He materialises and visualises the rather humdrum moments and

memories of routine through and by the perpetual processes based upon the tireless

individual collection of daily life and objects. For example, his annual project ‘Mass of

The Year’ is made out of the receipts which he collected for a calendar year. After

shredding, layering and weaving the receipts, he shapes a sphere-like mass

containing the memories collected and reproduced. Similarly, one of his drawing

series ‘1073’ is a result of numerous collective lines penned in black, with which he

filled up the paper, capturing the inward and outward changes of his surroundings.

The works could be seen as the visual connotation of moments he collected.

(Left) In Pause, Paint on Wood, 100Cm x100Cm x7Cm, 2011, (Right) In Pause (detail)

Jinhee Park finds traces of nature in everyday life. Although the city and

surroundings are maze-like and filled with skyscrapers, cars, signboards and asphaltpaved

roads, the artist still finds fundamental components of nature. For instance, his

recent works show his great interest in plywood. Plywood is just a basic material that

is mass produced. It is normally cut into the same regular size, and it is one of the

most widely used materials. The artist finds the traces of nature in the pattern on the

surface of the plywood and illustrates how the pattern is similar to that of running

water, blowing wind, and the flames of fire. The featured works ‘The Window’ and

‘The Pause’ markedly show the appreciation and closeness of the traces he finds in

his surroundings.

(Left) Wheel, Photography, 130x160cm, 2011, (Right) Table, Photography, 130x160cm, 2011

Seoyeoung Won starts his works by finding referential objects from daily life. Then,

he reinterprets the objects. Within the process of reinterpretation, he traces and tests

various means of visual expression in paintings and installation art in the

photography studios he meticulously sets up. The chosen objects often become a

part of the installation and resemble a painting in the photograph taken in the

illusionary studio set. The artist perceives and takes a daily object as a subject for

investigating the relationship between an object and space, the cognition of images

and means of visual expression. His works not only trace other aspects of daily

objects but also question the status of images touching the means of installation,

painting and photography.

Curated by Hyukgue KWON.

For Further Information or Queries, Please contact

Hanmi Gallery

info@hanmigallery.co.uk

T +44(0)208 286 4426

F +44(0)208 286 8976

M +44 07862 283 414

Hyukgue Kwon

hyukgue.kwon@network.rca.ac.uk