BER: 우민정
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Press Release Text
Gallery Chosun will present Woo Minjung’s second solo exhibition 《BER》, from February 8 to March 1, 2022. Woo works by filling wooden panels with clay and carving many different stories into them. In this show, she focuses on the idea of people who keep trying. She reflects on how our repeated, everyday actions may seem small or even pointless, yet they matter because they shape the future. The figures that appear in her work; elephants, snakes, grass, rainbows, ropes, tents, and others, reflect what each person hopes for. They rise upward, carrying our wish to one day move beyond our current efforts.
The title 《BER》 refers to things that move, make noise, and are always searching for something. It also serves as a metaphor for actions that may eventually seem pointless, yet are tied directly to instinct. An ironic contrast. These ongoing efforts invite us to reflect on the unique yet similar lives we lead today.
Unlike her previous work, each piece in this exhibition carries its own narrative, drawn from Buddhist teachings, literature, or song lyrics. But these aren’t full stories with a neat beginning and end. They’re kinds of small, vague, almost trivial episodes anyone might have experienced, things that appear for no clear reason, disappear just as suddenly, or pop up like unlikely heroes. They can be embarrassing, petty or completely ordinary.
The figures in the works run toward goals, fall from heights, get lost in their own reflections, love with a sense of divinity, break apart after slipping into traps, swim freely, cling and beg, or stumble into danger. Through these everyday moments, ordinary to others but meaningful to the one living them, the artist hopes to offer comfort to the BERs in all of us.
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A “wall” is a space for thought that can be viewed blankly, and it is a two-dimensional space that sees everything that passes by in front of it, recording all the events while getting scratched and stained occasionally. A wall is arguably the only three-dimensional plane on which time over time is piled. Let’s suppose this soil drawing board of mine is the wall.
I see countless attempts brushing past the wall. I also see that new attempts commonly found in my life or the lives of people around me make every day special. Every day is filled with ‘attempts’ that are invariably accompanied by the possibility of failure. These attempts are desperate and repetitive movements. Painting also consists of repetitive movements. It’s not done in a flash like thunder. One has to perform -- diligently like ants every single day -- activities such as drawing, line drawing, dotting, etching, surface grinding, and color field painting.
When people do something repetitively and consistently, it creates energy. What is actually more beautiful than the shining moment of sports would be countless attempts made for that very moment and the will that enabled that moment. At what point can the existence of an insignificant individual, whose ultimate meaning or necessity is hard to find, acquire justification and give meaning? And at what point can it shine? Only an attempt -- the movement at the moment of an attempt – burns a dot or dust, like the light flashes, into a shooting star that falls linearly. These attempts will give you the power to create tomorrow and give meaning.
Glimmering above the surface of the wall in my recent works(2022) are a group of numerous tiny movements. Like time passes day after day, these dots are repeated, make stories with a certain direction, and have their voices heard. Each story comes with a variety of themes and subjects. With grass and fire going upward and water falling down as the basic principle, a large roadmap with the order of gravity was drawn, in which position, balance, and relationship are created. And this is narrated in each scene.
This is a simple roadmap.
It’s divided into four sides. Water and its attributes at the bottom, desire at the right, death at the left, and, as the biggest obstacle and hope for a leap, flame at the upper part. Above fire is calm. It’s like a game going upward. In the center is a geometric shape that seems to emit yellow into the sky. I gave the color of yellow meanings such as a sacred thing, every moment of attempt and the will that creates all those moments, and the sweetness of the outcome. People who make attempts(honeybees) fly around this yellow thing, and stories occur in conjunction with subjects as these honeybees fly over each location. I used those stories as the structure of the picture. The bee represents people who always look for something and never stop making attempts. The snake(orange line) represents traps that can be found anywhere and can penetrate everything. The elephant represents a hurdle as well as an ideal. Between those animals appear subjects including murex, scale, mountain, balance pole, ball, the Holy Grail, apple, flower, grass, bird, star, cloud, cloth, window, monument, scale, and rope.
