Exhibition Information

Untitled
2016 (출처= 대구미술관) Ink on Korean paper 전시전경

Untitled
2016 (출처= 대구미술관) Ink on Korean paper 전시전경

			Since the spring of 2021, Daegu Art Museum has been organizing DArtist, a series that presents artists from Daegu with the vision of inspiring creative passion for artists in Daegu region and the establishment of a sustainable ecology in Daegu art scene. Daegu Art Museum is aiming to select both established and accomplished
artists from Daegu and Gyeongbuk region at age 40 or older, who have been continuing their experimental and distinct work, and organize their solo exhibitions, academic events, and archives. Following the previous exhibition of the established artists, the Museum is presenting a solo exhibition of artist CHA Kea Nam.
 
An artist of relentless self-exploration and reinvention, CHA(b.1953) started her artistic career in Kyoto, Japan, in 1980. She first gained recognition in the Japanese art scene, reviewed by critics such as Nagahiro Kinoshita(former professor of fine arts at Kyoto University of the Arts) and Shigeki Fukunaga(former head of exhibition team,  National Museum of Modern Art) before her works were invited to exhibitions in many places including Daegu and Seoul, and she has created a variety of works ever since. 
 
This exhibition offers a visual outlook of the artist’s philosophy on color and material, focusing mainly on her unpublished works.
CHA writes calligraphy on the traditional hanji paper,cuts it in certain length and width, and twist those pieces in order to make twines(threads) and use them as her main medium and material. Thread from hanji pieces being the artist’s unique material that requires a long time and effort to make, its texture, volume, and feel have become a unique metaphor representative of the artist, who easily crosses the boundary between painting and handicraft. Materialized from flat paper pieces twisted to form a sense of volume and carefully layered, her works are thus no longer flat in a conventional sense, but reborn as ‘flat relief.’
 
Dividing Gallery 2 and 3 of Daegu Art Museum and its Sunken Garden into 6 different areas, the artist presents about 33 works unpublished so far, which are composed of more than 200 individual pieces of objects. Two-dimensional black and white artworks each of which reveals different changes of brightness are installed in 5 spaces, with the other space showing a large-scale sculpture, whose main material is sisal hemp in deep solid black. The most noticeable color quality in CHA’s both three-dimensional and two-dimensional works are certainly the color black. The artist deliberately chose black in order to aesthetically control a variety of colors one can find in everyday life, and this color has now become ‘the symbol of invisible movement’ as well as her fatalistic companion. While embracing all colors, black can also reveal all of them, and this color of abyss is positioned in different places across the works on view, pulling the viewers to feel a dignified and refined sense of space.
 
Walking into the space, you are welcomed by large two-dimensional works composed of black and white, warp and weft, fullness and emptiness, and a texture that is not artificial. We encourage you to have an overview of the works from a distance and gradually approach them to gaze at numerous planes generated by densely intersecting threads; then you may take a glimpse of the layered and amassed times of the artist, who endured a great amount of time and effort in every single thread.
 
In addition, a projection room will be arranged to show a video that provides an overview of CHA’s latest works since 2014, and also a big monitor on the wall outside the gallery will show some of her major works.
 
The exhibition takes place from June 8th to September 26th, in Gallery 2 and 3 and Sunken Garden of Daegu Art Museum. As an affiliated event, “Conversation with Artist & Curator” will be held in June.
 
※ The catalogue of this exhibition will be published on July 30th.