2021 Anyang-based
Artist Discovery Support
Exhibition
: Spiral Movement
Organizer: Anyang Foundation for Culture & Arts
Planning Director: PARK IN OK
Exhibition Director: Byeon, Dong Suel
Exhibition Planning: Park, Eunsoo
Graphic Design: studio mot
Space Formation: NAMI Design
Screen: GLORIZE
Translation: T-bridge
Installation: KOREA ART
Since 2014, Anyang Foundation for Culture & Arts has been conducting a program to discover and support local artists based in Anyang through competitions. In 2021, we selected four artists (Yu, Hae Kyung, SUJIN LEE, Jangyeun Jun, and CHO Minah) and held the exhibition introducing their main works.
The theme of the exhibition ‘Spiral Movement’ represents the shape of endless repetition of unfolding and folding. This movement with opening and dynamic outwards and internal concentration coexist leads to transition and linked conversion to a new direction. The artists converge the constant external stimuli inside and create them into their formative language to convey another resonance to the world.
The exhibition is formed with spaces for each artist to present their themes and to allow an in-depth understanding of the artist’s artistic world through a separate archive.
Artist Yu, Hae Kyung deals with ‘Landscape (山水)’ under the theme of「 眞境 Homo Ludens - playing human」. To the artist, nature is not an object to escape from nor a concept far from the world but a ‘space for play’. It is not a secluded space separated from the world, nor a private space for training. It is a pleasant virtual space only for play. Based on her memories and experiences of the mountains, the author reconstructs mountaintops and valleys and enjoys happy dreaming with various people who wander and the mysterious imaginary animals. For the artist, the entire process of working is a play. The artist shares her mental experience and the joy of playing with the viewers of her painting through the space she created.
Artist SUJIN LEE visually describes the various emotions that exist behind life through the theme of「 Tender is the Ghost」. Several contradictions and distortions inevitably occur while we live, and come to us disorderly, uncertainly, and violently. Individuals are bound to be helpless and fragile beings in front of negative emotions derived from this process like uncontrollable fear, pain, doubt, sadness. The artist expresses delicate emotions such as small cracks, subtle conflicts, contradictions, wounds as if describing them through the color and composition of the painting.
In「 Sculptural Landscape」, artist Jangyeun Jun collects various objects, images, and languages of the consumer society and extracts and sculpts the underlying shapes and colors inside them. The balance between entities, the force to lean against each other, the intangible energy of push and pull are related to the emotions we feel in our daily lives, such as desire and restraint, nervousness and anxiety, expectancy, and will. The gathering of everyday objects becomes a natural scene and conveys the imagination and hidden messages of the artist, drawing our attention.
In「 A Fragmented Whole」, Artist CHO Minah works on allegorically representing the society pounded with absurdity, contradictions, conflicts, and division. Recently, we focus on the appearance of a divided society with fixed social class and biased information acquisition, The overlap of various and complex motifs are described very realistically. However, the delivery method is so metaphorical and symbolic that it makes it like a play with an allegory rather than giving a sense of reality. The stories and situations which are flexibly told by the artist encourage not only the artist herself but also the viewers to think about others and society based on their situation, location, and life experience.
All four of these artists have their distinct artistic worlds. It is difficult to find the ‘locality’ of ‘Anyang’ in them. However, it is clear that they are not stopping new aesthetic experiments and challenges, and they comfort and heal us through their results. As our daily lives collapsed due to the unexpected disaster, it is clear that we are actively wanting and feeling for art more. I hope that the works of Yu, Hae Kyung, SUJIN LEE, Jangyeun Jun, and CHO Minah will be a precious joy that conveys life and healing energy here today when we are miserable and wounded.
Park, Eunsoo - Curator of Anyang Foundation for Culture & Arts
