Exhibition Information

Exhibition view

(Source = Gallery KICHE)

Exhibition view

(Source = Gallery KICHE)

Exhibition view

(Source = Gallery KICHE)

			KICHE is pleased to present RYU Yaerim’s third solo exhibition Ancestral Wisdom from December 15, 2022 to January 28, 2023. In this exhibition, the artist recreates moments of fictional nostalgia, referring to indeterminate time, space, and subjects she has never experienced in person.  The pictorial and sculptural imageries mimic layers of accumulated time. Featuring works on canvas, which marks RYU’s departure from wood-panel paintings, a collection of 17 new paintings and 2 clay sculptures are on view.

The title of the exhibition does not directly refer to “ancestral” lineage or “wisdom” passed down through generations, but instead points towards time that extends far back into the past. Often “thinking about touching the outer walls of large buildings”, RYU is often left with feelings of unknown nostalgia, which invoke passed time and death that have already seeped into space. Driven by such thoughts and sensations, the artist imagines caressing surfaces that hold “the labor of the workers who built it, the surrounding weather conditions such as the amount of sunlight or rain, the haste and indifference of the passersby, and the many layers of debris and dust.” One of the main paintings of the exhibition, Ancestral Wisdom depicts such complex relationship the artist imagines in relation to her environment through a triangulated relationship between an old man’s buried corpse under the asphalt road, a wandering spirit, and two joggers with their dogs.

RYU Yaerim(b. 1994) lives and works in Seoul. She graduated B.F.A painting at Hongik University and she is in M.F.A painting at Korea National University of Arts. RYU has held solo exhibition at Show and Tell(2021, Seoul), ArtSpace Hyeong(2020, Seoul). RYU has participated group exhibitions at Doosan Gallery(2022, Seoul), BGA maru(2021, Seoul) and Stuttgart(2017). Recently, RYU was selected as the artist of “Now & Next” by Frieze and Chanel Korea, and she is participating in the “Review Project” of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea.

(Source = Gallery KICHE)