DEEP SURFACE
December 9 - December 30, 2009
Yuni Kwon_To whom..., video, 3m36s, 2009
 
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Yuni Kwon. Kyoung Na. Byung Lak Do. Jae Heon Lee.
Se Won Jung. Hun Jo. Keong Nim Hong


All images inhabit on the flat and thin layer of skin; painting, photography, and video does. Yet, that smooth surface doesn't stay as its physical condition. It is a deep layer without depth, where everything is possible with peculiar illusions, and a place of a dimensional movement, where dazzling imagination and mind ignites. It is aimed to vision and heart. It is a place where conceptual ideas are mapped while spiritual energy and imagination is wandering around. After Modernism compulsively attached to only superficial surfaces forgetting traditional painters’ pursuit of depth by trompe l'oeil, today's surface has become grandiose abyss for artists to experiment. The current surfaces seem to reach for another hybrid of modern art only accentuating on spectacles. Again, paintings give me an impression that they are obsessed to produce a mirage reflecting only craftsmanship side of an art like Modernism did in the past. Rather than being a taxiway for techniques to land on, the surface, where images dwell, is a delicate and irregular place delivering echo and throb to mind and spirit of the viewers. It definitely is a “deep surface.”
Artists in this exhibition pursue some kind of depth. They place or pour the images onto various physical surfaces. These images are difficult to capture or solidify in a ray of visualization or verbalization. They are longing for profundity only rubbing their body and spirit onto flat and thin, ambiguous and instable surfaces. What lies beneath their depth might be different but those are psychological wounds remained over time. Image is absent and insufficient; at the same time, it survives either short or long period leaving its marks. It is a desire for a deep surface.


Young Taik Park(Art Critic, Professor in kyonggi University)