[비즈한국] Another trend in the contemporary art world, driven by a new generation, is the shift toward self-exploration rooted in deeply personal sentiments. These artists find subject matter in their trivial daily lives and, by focusing on personal interests, attempt to provide individual answers to the questions, “Who am I?” and “Where am I?” This tendency to express the self through daily life is embodied by artists such as Park Soon-yeon, Kang Myeong-suk, Hong Dan-bi, Lee Mi-hee, and Kosy.
Self-Expression in Daily Life
Park Soon-yeon strives to find new meaning in the sea she sees every day. She finds the preciousness and value of daily life in seascapes, expressing her will to make them appear different by attaching new significance to them. Kang Myeong-suk, who seeks the value of her existence in a reality reduced to miniatures, displays exquisite craftsmanship that awakens the fact that manual labor is the essence of art. Hong Dan-bi, who demonstrates a unique sensibility through work that turns childhood objects of attachment into images, summons precious, fading memories to recharge the vitality of daily life.
Lee Mi-hee, who creates unique landscapes based on traditional landscape painting compositions, works on capturing the world extracted from her own eye level and environmental experiences. Kosy presents work that explores the connection between human psychology and people using the hand as a motif, expressing weighty themes such as the restoration of human relationships and healing of the heart.
Focus on the Properties of Materials
Painting is a visual art. Therefore, it inevitably relies on visual language. While artists pour effort into the content of their works, what ultimately matters in the final piece are the properties of the materials or the forms displayed on the canvas. This is referred to as work that uses the properties of materials as a painterly language. Artists belonging to this group include Park Jun-hee, Lee Hye-won, and Seong Ju-young.
Park Jun-hee presents abstract work that combines the materiality of materials with the nature of color. He cuts dyed Hanji into uniform sizes and stacks them in layers to show subtle shifts in color and the physical properties of the paper. Lee Hye-won, who presents a canvas resembling the edges of books, seeks the harmony of various lives through the materiality of her medium. Seong Ju-young, challenging the new possibilities of ceramic painting, displays a unique canvas by applying the properties of ceramic clay. She has chosen the physical nature of clay and the cracks created by ceramic techniques as her own painterly language, through which she captures the will to overcome the conflicts and growing pains of human relationships.
Social Messages
The works of Kim Ho-sung, Chae Jung-wan, and Kim In are notable for conveying weighty messages regarding the contradictions between the individual and society or power.
Kim Ho-sung uses photography to show the sense of presence in virtual reality and the virtual images of actual reality, critiquing contradictory realities. Chae Jung-wan, who expresses groups with immense power through standardized human images, attacks the absurdities of reality by satirizing the ridiculous aspects of power. Kim In, who shows the superheroes craved by this era through pop art imagery, presents refreshing paintings that vicariously fulfill the aspirations of ordinary people.