Exhibition Information

			When coming face to face with an artist’s work, we may feel something stirring in our hearts. Without a doubt, there is a stimulus that moves us somewhere inside, but it is often difficult to find suitable words to properly express that feeling.
 
There are many emotions that exist but cannot be expressed with language. Let us put aside for a moment the attempt to analyze and describe the phenomenon and the inference of intention based on someone’s history. Instead, let us deliberately follow the artist’s perceptions and emotions. It is also good to project one’s own situation and sensibilities to lay bare the occasional stray thought. If one of these works begins to slowly take root within us, it may someday pop out during our everyday life like a moment of déjà vu. The mental activity in which the artist’s perception and touch in the work soak into me and cause me to think of myself: this is the power of art that goes beyond the limits of language.
 
In January 2021, the ideas of the 10th Artists in Residence at the OCI Museum of Art’s Creative Studio have materialized into works of various shapes and structures. It is my wish that the resonance they create will bring about the emotional immersion within you.
 
GR1 squeezes through the old alleys of city centers and exposes their essence upon his work in minute detail. The big city, which grows in size day by day, has continued to push against the narrow alleys, leaving only dark and gloomy walls; yet you may still come to feel the heat of the old furnace that once forged a splendid city. The role of the kindling is taken by the few who wish to speak out immediately, hiding their faces and names. The shouts of the minority that awaken the silence of the majority are transferred from the walls of the alleys to the canvas without dissipating their heat.
 
Min Ho Kim’s gaze is focused on a series of events, but while building up multiple scenes of places or situations, the events themselves become diluted. Usually, when the relevant data is gathered, the problem becomes clear. However, the artist shakes the associated images and takes new measures, refusing to confine the meaning to a perfect representation. He recommends diversified thinking through a more active deployment of ideas, moving away from the trap of tunnel vision which focuses only on the immediate event.
 
Jungeun Kim records and compares the changes to the streets, recalling the universal value of memories and experiences. The waterways she deals with flow under the locations where people pass by. The waterway, continuing on its journey, embraces the moments that have disappeared into the past. It breaks through mountains and soon afterwards passes through pebbles, eroding its surroundings every day. The artist traces the process, reads the point where the past and the present intersect from a formative viewpoint, and creates a map not as an objective indicator, but as one that contains personal memories and time.
 
Seungbeom Son reproduces ancient statues that act as the object or medium of faith together with the archetypal shape of the boulder, and then boldly erases these objects with trivial weeds or thin, brittle-looking branches. Behind blind belief or change, there are certain things that are forgotten and alienated. The artist proposes that before placing faith in something, we who are accustomed to stereotypical ways of thinking must reexamine the validity of such beliefs, and seek and ruminate upon the essential nature of things.
 
Houk Lee explores the individual in nature, extracting images and collecting scenes. The temperature, smell, and moisture of the time he captures natural scenes are used as vivid materials for his work. He endeavors to think about wounds and healing by stitching the rugged roots that cover the mountains with red thread, and realizes that under the clouds that are larger than mountains, he is nothing more than a shadow. Nature plays the role of a medium to reflect on the artist himself. Projecting what he gains from nature onto his work, he stimulates the emotions and spirit of the viewer.
 
Juyeon Jeon‘s work is blurry and unclear as if being viewed through a curtain of moisture, but nonetheless, it creates a sphere into which another story enters. Her artistic language, which is constantly expanding through the method of exploring an object, enables continuous interpretations for learning. The artist shifts the text into a different sense, preventing it from being buried in the framework of linguistic thinking and the expected effect on cognition. She freely crosses the realms of language and art, fully enjoying and experimenting with the process of thought.
 
Choulgue Jung’s indirect and suggestive gestures encompass the entire work. Although he is careful enough to allow for long pauses of silence now and then, he does not proceed loosely, nor does he push something away easily based on it being a little different. Sometimes faint whispers and thin sensations pierce the mind more sharply than harsh and direct ones. Through the process of extended observation and reevaluation of thought time after time, the artist brings out the value of something that cannot be replaced by anything else.
 
The space read by Changhwan Chun evokes a wide variety of sensations. The vacant area, seemingly indifferent, has a keen sense of tension due to a single intense gap beside it. The flat and thick brushstrokes are crossed, creating a very dedicated appearance. Fragments of such diverse sensations fill the gaps in the countless landscapes passing by, reminding us of a day that has never been repeated and many nights that have never resembled each other. In doing so, they induce the viewer’s empathy.
 
During the past year that exhausted everyone, the tenth cohort of artists in residence at the OCI Museum of Art did not fail to catch the scenes that the rest of us overlooked. They looked deeply into places where people’s gazes and devotion did not reach, embraced what was forgotten and alienated, portrayed objects with a delicate finesse, and produced stories filled with various emotions and thoughts. We hope that their perspectives and influence can heal our wounded and weary hearts, and expect your support and interest for their next moves as artists.

 
Youngji Lee (Curator, OCI Museum of Art)