Asian Reflections
Employing paint and acrylic plexiglass, Park Byung-Hoon creates a unique synthesis of geometric and ethereal forms. Stylistically comparable to the Minimalist movement and approach of the 1960s, Byung-Hoon’s work engages the audience in an exclusive dialogue, affording viewers a singular opportunity to interpret independent from suggestion. As with the Minimalist precedent, the ever-present prospect of impossibility of interpretation exists as well, intensifying personal experience of Byung-Hoon’s work.
Capitalizing on the transparent nature of glass, Byung-Hoon is able to create elegant, dream-like abstractions. Rather than attempting to control the paint, he allows the medium to flow freely within the acrylic before capturing its progress mid-motion. Such a reductive method of creation calls attention to the materiality of the work, while simultaneously allowing the artist to focus exclusively on the hues and patterns created as a result of the process.
The pronounced three-dimensionality of the acrylic glass enables Byung-Hoon to take a deliberate step away from the traditional distinction between painting and sculpture, and toward a more personal exploration of the physical nature of art as an object.
Abstraction is courted, yet ultimately tempered in the work of Keun Woo Lee. Traces of figuration persist; plants, flowers, and other elemental features of landscape remain visible in Lee’s creations. These forms, however, serve as a mere framework for the “nothingness” that holds the artist’s true interest. Lee has developed a keen sensitivity for the exploration of absence’s impact on depth, successfully immersing the viewer’s attention in the concave reductions of the final image.
A classically trained landscape painter, Lee has worked with a variety of media. Her latest body of work is characterized by painted porcelain from Jingdezhen, China, known for nearly two millennia as the “porcelain capital”. The artist’s creative process is an arduous one— Lee paints, then fires, large porcelain sheets within a single kiln in order to achieve the desired aesthetic. Working quickly and intuitively, and believing corrections to be taboo, the artist’s process ensures that each brushstroke and implementation of color acts as a gestural invocation of emotion.
Capitalizing on the transparent nature of glass, Byung-Hoon is able to create elegant, dream-like abstractions. Rather than attempting to control the paint, he allows the medium to flow freely within the acrylic before capturing its progress mid-motion. Such a reductive method of creation calls attention to the materiality of the work, while simultaneously allowing the artist to focus exclusively on the hues and patterns created as a result of the process.
The pronounced three-dimensionality of the acrylic glass enables Byung-Hoon to take a deliberate step away from the traditional distinction between painting and sculpture, and toward a more personal exploration of the physical nature of art as an object.
Abstraction is courted, yet ultimately tempered in the work of Keun Woo Lee. Traces of figuration persist; plants, flowers, and other elemental features of landscape remain visible in Lee’s creations. These forms, however, serve as a mere framework for the “nothingness” that holds the artist’s true interest. Lee has developed a keen sensitivity for the exploration of absence’s impact on depth, successfully immersing the viewer’s attention in the concave reductions of the final image.
A classically trained landscape painter, Lee has worked with a variety of media. Her latest body of work is characterized by painted porcelain from Jingdezhen, China, known for nearly two millennia as the “porcelain capital”. The artist’s creative process is an arduous one— Lee paints, then fires, large porcelain sheets within a single kiln in order to achieve the desired aesthetic. Working quickly and intuitively, and believing corrections to be taboo, the artist’s process ensures that each brushstroke and implementation of color acts as a gestural invocation of emotion.
