낯설지만 분명한: Kang Seong Eun
Night, the Space and Time of Perception and Thought
Moonjung Lee (PhD in Fine Arts, Adjunct Professor at Chung Ang University)
For humans, especially artists, perceiving a being or object is not simply the result of biological and casual processes of the eyes and brain. It is a combined act of meaning that brings together physical experience through the whole body and inner experience through the mind. In this process, what matters is not only the perceived object, but also the interaction between the perceiving subject and the space and time in which the object exists.
Kang Seong Eun’s work is also the result of this combined process of perception and thought, formed by the subject and the object within a specific space and time. For the artist, the condition of beings placed in a particular time and place is essential, because Kang captures landscapes and presences seen at night. Our days are made of day and night. Night is often seen as a realm of the unconscious and a symbol of the hidden inner self. The unease of darkness has given night negative meanings such as suffering, death, sorrow, and grief. At the same time, night also stands for new worlds and new beginnings, and for the rest and healing that make them possible.
As Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote, rest at night is part of the natural order. Night enters the world quietly and gently. As it deepens, the air heated by the sun cools, and the images that strained our eyes in daylight grow still. Our senses and mind settle. When night deepens and we look at the sky, the stars, and the beings around us, we have a moving experience of our own existence and a sense of peace.
Kang Seong Eun believes that night is the time where the beings of the world can be truly perceived, experienced, and given meaning. During the day, too many images enter our field of vision, forcing us to focus too much on sight alone. Human vision is not as complete as we think. Even when an artist’s images seem to capture both the visible and invisible worlds, they are still partial and approximate, shaped by just one human sense. They cannot show the world in its entirety. Aware of this limit, Kang turns more deeply toward the darkness of night.
At night, light disappears and many images fade, but beings do not vanish, nor does the world change. Instead, reduced visibility opens a chance to sense objects through the whole body, including touch and smell, and to grasp the meaning of beings in the world.
The theme of “perceiving the world through night landscapes” began in the artist’s everyday life. Moving back and forth between Iksan and Seoul, Kang spends much of daily life on the KTX (Korean Train Express) or in the car, naturally spending more time looking out the window. The artist became drawn to the night. From the first day of this unfamiliar yet unavoidable experience, Kang began to translate those memories into work. The series produced in 2011 are the result. Mountains and trees, vinyl greenhouses, buildings large and small, the sky and the ground, and the presence of night that embraces them all lead viewers into a reflective mode of perception. The layered sensory experience offered by night is fully absorbed into Kang’s work. Night comes toward us like the sea. The works wrap around us like a veil, and we are drawn inside. Though we look only with our eyes, we feel the night air with our whole body and fall into a tactile kind of viewing. The work becomes one with the world, including ourselves.
After some time, the artist returned to night landscapes in the 2014 series, conveying once again the resonance of the world and its beings hidden within an extreme stillness that can feel like boredom. Night, because it is dark, holds all forms. Because it is silent, it contains all sounds. Because it is still, it includes all movement. For this reason, the night landscapes Kang depicts are not simply night as time of day. They are unknown spaces and ties that call forth a world beyond visible expression and lead us to encounters with beings we have not yet recognised.
To express this unknown space and time, Kang chose pencil. This choice creates an unexpected contrast, since pencil is usually seen as a medium suited to precise and clear forms. Using it to depict night, when only vague masses of presence can be sensed, seems strange at first. Yet another reversal appears here. Kang’s pencil drawings do not show sharp lines or clear shapes, but night as an endless mass or space. In fact, drawing darkness with a pencil is not easy. It requires physical and mental labour. The pencil marks cannot be too dark, too sharp, too forceful or too weak. The artist steadies the breath like a form of training and strictly controls the body. All senses are focused on the fine texture of the pencil marks on paper.
As a result, Kang Seong Eun successfully draws out the darkest intensity and density that pencil can achieve. The weight of the work feels heavier than that of pieces made with other media. The sense of depth is so strong that viewers may feel as if they are being pulled into endless darkness. At times, it seems as though the artist is completely absorbed in the expressive possibilities of pencil. Yet Kang says there is no attachment to the pencil itself and that other materials could be used at any time. Pencil was chosen because it is an ordinary tool that can capture everyday scenes using only light and dark, and because it can create an atmosphere similar to ink painting, which the artist studied for many years. The common belief that pencil cannot convey weight or depth also appealed to Kang’s spirit of challenge.
When viewing Kang’s work, we should focus less on the medium of pencil and more on the repeated act of drawing lines and on the layers of time contained in that process. Filling the surface with pencil lines transfers the artist’s stored memories of perceiving the world into the work. As the lines accumulate, so do hours of the day, thoughts, and reflections on the world. The repetition of drawing lines does not simply build up physical labour. It points to repeated acts of thinking. In fact, Kang enjoys sinking into endless reflection while repeating a single action. When that reflection comes to an end, the artist encounters yet another night, newly created by the self.
As night landscapes continue to fill the studio walls, Kang Seong Eun’s work shifts toward creating an abstract world, as seen in the 2014 series. In the end, the realms of form and non-form merge into one. The works present what looks like a single black field, similar to cold-field abstraction. Yet this complete darkness is not the disappearance of form. Rather, it exists as an infinite space that contains all forms.
For Kang, this blackness and darkness are like ink in East Asian thought, where ink, both empty and true in colour, holds all the colours of the universe and symbolizes the principles of nature and the world. When one moves closer to darkness, individual beings begin to appear within it. When one steps back, it becomes an unknown space. In this sense, Kang’s move toward abstraction is a natural course. The world we perceive is representational, but at the same time abstract. Just as forms seem to vanish when hundreds or thousands of images overlap, the deeper the artist’s process of perception becomes, the more a profound space is filled with the resonance of beings in the world.
As Goethe noted, works made in black and white are products of extreme abstraction. For this reason, Kang’s choice to use pencil and limit night to black and white tones was an excellent one. As mentioned earlier, Kang’s true aim is not to depict landscapes like photographs, but to convey the artist’s experience of perceiving the world through landscape, along with the psychological and mental processes that take place within that experience.
Just when it seems that the work has reached its endpoint, the artist presents a new experience of perception: the discovery of faint light within darkness. Kang turns attention to light. In the darkness of night, even the smallest trace of light can be sensed, and light shining at night appears even more brilliant. Night now shifts into an ambivalent space where darkness and light overlap. The 2014 series records the first moment of perceiving light within darkness, while another 2014 series represents moonlight. One work in particular, a large piece measuring 4.2 metres in width, gives form to moonlight through projected light. The projector slowly brightens and dims in repetition, suggesting how we perceive light and darkness in the night sky.
The appearance of the moon in the night landscapes marks an important change. Since ancient times, the moon has been seen as a mysterious source of imagination, creativity and inspiration. It also symbolizes the cycle of time and contains a circular sense of duration. Unlike the sun, whose form remains constant, the moon embodies change. It moves from crescent to full, to waning, and then disappears, only to repeat this cycle again and again. Like the moon, plants return each year, animals grow, and the seasons and the u universe move in recurring cycles. The moon reflects the history of beings that are born, grow, and die. Through its changing form, it represents life and death, rebirth, and eternal return. The moon rising in darkness creates a middle ground where the unclear meets the clear. The ambiguous space leads the artist into creative reverie. On moonlit nights, the artist turns inward, drawing imagination and creation from intuition.
Kang’s works appear simple, but this is only on the surface. Like the darkness of night, it holds an unfathomable depth and ambiguity, like the moon that exists within darkness with its dual nature. The work reveals truths of the world that cannot be fully explained by logic. In the end, Kang’s night landscapes stand as a culmination of ontological and aesthetic insight, offering a quiet time for thought and meditation. When this meditative time ends and the veil of night is lifted, we encounter a mysterious meeting of what is seen and what is unseen.