Opening: Fri 12 Jul, 5 pm
Exhibition: 12 – 22 Jul 2013
New Space Arts Foundation
From the organizer:
You are invited to the painting exhibition “The paradox of the gap” by artist Jea Young Choi (Korea). Read the artist’s statement: From the contrast of a smile to the contrast of life…
In 2012, I was thinking a lot about finding a new opportunity for myself, so I stopped painting and started drawing pencil sketches. I thought, to express my ideas, the time-consuming process of painting lets the ideas at the moment slip away easily. When you have a first glance at my sketches, you might think that they are interesting, but when you take a closer look, they appear to be less amusing since they all imply contrasts. My artworksexpose the visible contrasts in every aspects, from the way people act, to their prejudice, capitalism, and their sexes. For heavy topics, I try to find a mild way to exhibit them so that the audience could perceive them easily. Avoiding the unnecessary expressions and only showing the implications/ concepts is one of my purposes. The reason why I do not use straightforward expressions but contrasts is because I want to give the audience the chance to think about it. If they think my artworks are funny, then they become amusing artworks, if they see the concepts, then they become artworks with inherent meanings.
After participating in the residency research program in India in 2012, my artworks in 2013 are united to center on contrasts, it is the gap in life. In many places, although classism has been suppressed class discrimination still exists and tremendously affects our lives, it is worse than the invisible power of money. It is sad to know the fact that we are all human beings, but our lives are controlled by money, so I started to think of a way to shorten the gap between people. In a money-dominated society, humans will not function if they do not, at least, get their compensation. It is like a contract. Sometimes money creates the phenomenon that breaks the living forms of society (ie holidays, relationships between people …..). What could be the plan that can solve all these problems? The answer is “The true compassionate heart” which represents love. In the relationships that money is not set above all, if we feel the love and the compassion, all problems are solved. My works in 2013 were started with the above components. Starting with “Gap”, the series makes people think by placing successful objects in capitalism and the opposite objects in the same screen, “How They Live”, my ongoing series creates a contrast of the relationship between silver and the spurned class by using silver, a technique in lacquer painting that I have been doing at New Space Arts Foundation. Unlike “Gap” series, “How They Live” series is not about the opposition objects, but it is the story of the prestige of labor (how to perceive them), the contrast between the objects and the materials by drawing the spurned class on silver background. Silver is expressed diversely, sometimes it is a river, places of life, harassing sunbeams, and sometimes partitions giving deep atmosphere. To get beautiful and varied shapes, in “How They Live” series, I mainly used small-size panels. “How to help” is the series I’m planning to do when my thinking is developed. This section describe how the richer in the contrast pairs help the poorer. Although the three series (Gap, How to live, How to help) are slightly different in the ways they are expressed in each section, the outcomes are the same thinking circuit as I mentioned above. Even if my works are only able to give people a chance to think a little bit about human love, I will take it as satisfying.
New Space Arts Foundation
2nd Floor, Number 15 Le Loi, Hue City
Tel: +84 543 600 668
Source: Hanoi Grapevine
