WAYS OF SEEING : PART I Private View Thursday 7th Jan 2010

The sense of sight that we experience is influenced on what we know and believe. We generally see things in a boundary of our sight and understanding. The term, ‘image’ (taken from John Berger’s essay ‘the way of seeing’) indicates something newly made or reproduced sight; and the artists are people who create images. All the images that artists produce embody ways of seeing. Their works provide direct evidence about the world where contemporary people exist rather than any other types of media in the world.

The main theme that links these artists is that they have been making works in their own counties, from Germany, Denmark and Korea. The artists’ initial steps outside their lands are London; but no one knows what made them to reach here. They are unhinging their own histories in London where it seems more dynamic than any other cities. London is a flourishing splendor of individuals and a centre of cosmopolis. In this enormous city, these artists perceive and act upon their own ways of seeing.

Heena Kim stimulates her imagination and makes characters which are part human, part creature in her painting. Dismantling the human body and joining it with parts of non-humans such as insects and animals, she tries to tangle the lines of fragility which defines the anatomy of fantasy. Jihye Park is interested in the fantastical, the horrific and the paradoxical elements of the Fairy Tale. Combining these ingredients in a simple recipe she has made my own Fairy Tale. Her Fairy Tale focuses upon conventions of sense and the sensibility of relationships. Jung-Ouk Hong tries to express harmonies which consist of emotional qualities by using common parts of everyday life and the inherent rational values. In his works, there are three basic components: triangles, circles and squares. They compose all visual formations in the world. His works aim to enhance psychological and physical elements assembling those basic components. Soonhak Kwon finds the scenery around everyday routine as an uncanny object is a means of reaching the real, a region of sacredness, in the sense that it is impossible to reach as Jacques Lacan emphasizes. Accordingly, it is possible to taste the heaven on earth if we truly speculate in the belief of paradox, since heaven is above us but ‘Here and Now’. Tina Hage is interested in the relationship between the crowd and the individual and how they are represented in the mass media. She deploys contemporary photojournalistic and topical imagery from multi media, which Tina reflects upon by using herself repetitively to re-enact the found scenes.

- Gunwoo Shin
http://www.i-myu.com