Seeing: 5 female artists from Korea

News of an upcoming exhibition at the Coningsby Gallery, 30 Tottenham Street, London, W1T 4RJ, 2 – 7 August.

Seeing: 5 female artists from Korea

Artists: Honey Im, Hyemin Park, Jeehee Park, Jihee Kim, Woorim Chu
Duration: From 2nd to 7th of August 2010
Opening Hours: Monday – Saturday, 8:30 am – 6:30 pm
Private View Evening: 6pm to 9:30 pm, Monday 2nd August

I am pleased to present “Seeing: 5 female artists from Korea.” the group exhibition in London of work by influential South Korean artists working in various countries including UK, Korea and Germany. This exhibition features 5 female artists from cross cultural background working with variety of materials including painting, drawing, photography and print. This exhibition will be on view from 2 August – 7 August 2010.

The show is about how the artists face the object with their own perspectives. As the sense of sight influences everything we experience, this show is showcasing stories how each artist sees and feels the world, the objects, each others, or themselves. The term ‘Seeing’ simply reflects the individual’s attitude towards the world we live in. As we generally see things in a boundary of our sight and understanding, all works that artists produce embody their ways of seeing. The artists newly made or reproduced so-called ‘sight’ with their own stories and challenged viewers’ understanding of the real and the perceived, the operation of different systems, and ultimately, what qualifies as art. Despite these elevated philosophical ideas, their works remain accessible to the viewers.

This exhibition will allow the viewer to explore the works of these emerging Korean artists while gaining a better understanding of the origins of ‘Perspective’. Furthermore, this show will create an open discourse regarding these five artists’ works and how we comprehend objects and other systems that we are ‘seeing’ in our life.

Ahyoung Baek, Curator

Honey Im

Honey Im’s paintings explore the territory of unconscious thoughts and the feminine psyche, most recently surrounding the identity of “Mother Nature”, in which nature has the same power as women to create new life. Her paintings illustrate that nature such as plants and birds represents the goddesses of ancient belief systems which create the world.

Honey Im completed PG dip and MA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art & Design, London in 2008 and 2009. She currently lives and works in London and Seoul, Korea. Exhibitions include: Distorted space, Waterloo Gallery, London, 2009; Collision, Gallery77, London, 2009; Condensation, Bodhi Gallery, London, 2009; Gift, 10 Vyner street Gallery, London, 2009; 3rd 4482 SASAPARI, Bargehouse, London, 2010; New Normal Life, Kimi Art, Seoul, Korea, 2010

Hyemin Park

Hyemin Park’s drawings feature image of mass produced objects from IKEA and ARGOS catalogues. During the exhibition period, there will be an artist’s performance showing as her practice is concerned with exploring innovative methods of interaction with the audience. Each individual piece is going be sold for the exactly same price of the object drawn. Her works present not merely our daily life as a consumer but also the value of contemporary art in society.

Hyemin Park completed MA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art & Design, London in 2009. She currently lives and works in London. Exhibitions include: Good form, Insa Art Space, Korea, 2005; Seoul Young Artists Festival: Portfolio 2005, Seoul Metropolitan Museum of Art, Korea, 2005; Place and Memory, Gallery CAVE, Japan, 2009; Supervisions, Korean Cultural Centre UK, London, 2009; 3rd 4482 SASAPARI, Bargehouse, London, 2010; The 1st DIGIFESTA [ROOKIE], Gwangju Museum of Art, Korea, 2010

Jeehee Park

Jeehee Park’s works are often described as the efforts and the process to complete the perfect travel photography. Travel photos often exist only as a kind of evidence of the trip and often limited to show only a few parts of visual images amongst all of the events people experiences at the time the photos were taken. When the artist encountered the landscape of the Iceland while she was traveling, she intuitively selected various images of the landscape into the frame and recognised the place itself. She tries to reinterpret the landscape with her own sight by adding and deleting some new scene and elements with taping, overlapping directly on the photographs themselves.

Jeehee Park completed MA in Fine Art at Ewha Womans University in Korea in 2010. She currently lives and works in Seoul, Korea. Exhibitions include: Summer art workshop finale, Schloss Lelkendorf, Güstrow, Germany, 2006; Play, Yonhe-Dong 195 Gallery, Korea, 2007; Ideal Real, Welcome Gallery, Korea, 2007; NES Artist Residency, Skagaströnd, Iceland,2010; VCU Summer studio program, Virginia, USA, 2008; Treading Water, Virginia Commonwealth University, VA, U.S., 2009; Reflecting the light, Hongik University, Korea, 2009; Each and every paragraph, Hongik modern art museum, Korea, 2009; Monopoly, Coesfeld Kunstverein, Coesfeld, Germany, 2010; Looking at the north han river, Seoho museum of art, Korea, 2010

Jihee Kim

Jihee Kim mainly works with painting filling with the girl’s face with braces, sheep-shaped hat, odd eye and sunglasses on. Is she smiling or crying beyond the sunglass? As we look through her paintings over and over, we realise the smile of the girl in the painting is unnatural. Jihee, the artist, talks about the contradictory situation which people have and face in modern life such as loneliness, not being able to tell the truth and hide themselves behind so-called “mask”. The subject matter of her works is quite serious and dark but she describes it in an ironic way while using sweet and fairytale-like colours.

Jihee Kim completed MA in Fine Art at Ewha Womans University in Korea in 2009. She currently lives and works in Seoul, Korea. She has exhibited internationally including 3 solo shows and 5o group exhibitions: Qingdao International Art Expo, China, 2007; Passage Rites, Suwon Museum of Art, Korea, 2008; Korean Pavilion, The Cultural&Arts Festival of Songzhaung, Beijing, China, 2009; Happy New Year From the East, Tacoma Contemporary, Washington, U.S., 2010; Meeting Asian Artists, Art Haus66 Gallery, Santafe, U.S., 2010; Busan Biennale, Shinsegae Gallery, Korea, 2010; Art Daegu Art fair, Daegu EXCO, Korea, 2010. Collections include: Gallery Homeland, Oregon, U.S.; Ustech, Vaimi, ARCK, Blume Gallery, The K Gallery, Gallery Unofficial Preview, Korea and private collections.

Woorim Chu

Woorim Chu’s works are based on oriental energy and a unique tradition that inspires her to discover endless vitality of the world. She uses Calligraphy which represents Chinese characters as the starting point of her works. She defines so-called abstract beauty of calligraphy by looking back at how Chinese characters established in ancient period. She realised and developed the idea of the shape of letters come from the shape of nature and they can be abstract art themselves. The artist, Woorim, once mentioned, “If you encounter the letter in a sentence, it only exists as a means of language. However, in art works, the letter image portrays the narrative ability of Chinese characters and their unique artistic traits. Through the creative process of transforming, distorting, superimposing and unifying the letters, it changes to essence of letters. It can be an independent art work when the coincidental effect of ink meets my own thinking.” By using the effect of ink bleeding, her works not only talk about the spirit of herself, but also mystery of the universe. Her language will be complete when all these processes are done.

Woorim Chu completed MA in Fine Art at Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden, Germany in 2010. She currently lives and works in Dresden and Berlin. Exhibitions include: „Der Sommernachtstraum“ , am Theater Köln – Shakespeare, Germany, 2007, „Die Gläser der Erinnerungen“, Osten Ausstellung beim Ge8, die Ateliergemeinschaft, Germany,2008; Die fotografiesche Bilder „Geburt“, Die Jahresausstellung an der Hfbk, Germany, 2008; „Was ist es hässlich“, an der Hfbk, Germany, 2010

Links:

• www.coningsbygallery.com