Oriental VisArt, a gallery based in Geneva specialising in Asian artists, is holding its first London exhibition borrowing the space at Mokspace Gallery at 33 Museum Street, WC1A 1LH (opposite the British Museum):
Between Tiers
Wook Heo Solo Exhibition
Oriental VisArt 6th Exhibition
25 Jan – 7 Feb 2012Oriental VisArt is pleased to announce the forthcoming solo exhibition of Korean artist Wook Heo – his first solo show in Europe.
«Between Tiers» is an extension of Wook Heo’s series of work shown in the group exhibition «The Space Between» presented by Oriental VisArt in Geneva during March 2011. The artist disassembles and reassembles painted media to create unique works that are neither painting nor relief. Through the reconstruction process his works form layers and colour fields that alter the meaning of his subject matter and encourage the viewer to analyse and find perspective in the many new layers of the work. Whilst Heo’s technique remains the same, his subject matter has expanded to not only include cars, interiors and material elements associated with consumer society, but highly eroticised imagery of men and women.
The artist has previously indicated an interest in showing the connective point between convergence and divergence of cultural life and identity in contemporary civilisation. His reconstitution of images of women as represented in these latest works as objects of desire render them neither less nor more desirable than the vintage cars, high-brow literature or consumer goods as depicted in other works. Their abstraction draws our attention away from creating an interpretive framework based merely on the subject matter. Instead the artist invites us to make an analysis of what lies between reality and representation, incited by the myriad of ways in which the surfaces and layers of the work can be viewed. His use of solid primary colour blocks and the layering of material forces us to look beyond the superficial to imagine perhaps a different scenario – perhaps one less brash and vibrant – to a sub-culture that is more perverse and flagrant.
Born in Seoul in 1973, Heo completed his studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris specialising in painting, drawing, architecture and multi-media in 1998. His work has featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions in Korea since 2001. «Between Tiers» is the artist’s first European solo exhibition following on from his participation in his first European group show in 2011, also presented by Oriental VisArt.
Sascha Gianella
January, 2012Oriental Visart
Show room Rue Sautter 1 1, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
T +41 (0)22 346 9825 | M (Kayla Hye K, Yang) +41 (0)79 856 1686 | E [email protected] | W http://www.oriental-visart.ch | B http://orientalvisart.wordpress.com | T http://twitter.com/oriental_visart
