Trick Mirror
2009 Oil on canvas 76×61cm
DOOSAN Gallery is pleased to announce SPECTATORS, which will run from June 11th to July 5th. The exhibition SPECTATORS examines with how an artist observes his or her surroundings, how the artist creates a story out of such surroundings, and how this story forms a relationship with viewers.
Seven painters-Jangpa, Jiyoon Koo, Hyein Lee, Leeje, Yongseok Oh, Noah Ryu and Hyeonkyeong You-initiate artworks on the basis of novels, myths, or films, or based on their individual experiences, collecting memories about places they have experienced and the people that surround them. They may choose a person whom they have never previously met to sit as a model for a painting, or attempt to reach and grasp their recollections of urban landscapes and trivial details of everyday life. Further, they reveal a collective sense of unease and lethargy that they feel as individuals within an endlessly changing society that has taken on a structure of complexity.
More so than actively engaging in society and the situations or people surrounding them, the artists instead focus on the inner meaning that is created in gazing at and observing these subjects. What they attempt to express is not the subject of their experiences per se, but rather something that cannot be expressed in words, such as essence of the subject’s hidden side, or the mood that emerges from interacting with the subject. Accordingly, their experiences straddle a certain point in between the figurative and the abstract, capturing the story of this process.
Stories that begin with things that the artists observed and experienced leave only traces of lines, colors, figures, and landscapes on the picture plane. As we quietly observe the process of such traces meeting and colliding with one other on the canvases, perhaps we will be able to find the possibility of creating a new relationship with such traces, as well as the possibility of encountering yet another story.
Jangpa (b. 1981) received her undergraduate degree in Painting and Aesthetics and completed her master’s course in Fine Art at Seoul National University. She has held solo exhibitions at TV12 Gallery (2013, Seoul, Korea), OCI Museum (2011, Seoul, Korea), and Artspace Hut (2009, Seoul, Korea). She has participated in group exhibitions at venues that include Common Center (2014, Seoul, Korea), Space No Wave (2014, Seoul, Korea), Asia Culture City (2013, Gwangju, Korea), Hangaram Art Museum (2011, Seoul, Korea), MK2 (2011, Beijing, China), KT&G Sangsangmadang (2010, Seoul, Korea), Art Factory (2010, Paju, Korea), Kwanhoon Gallery (2010, Seoul, Korea), Salon de H (2010, Seoul, Korea), and supplement space STONE & WATER (2008, Anyang, Korea).
Jiyoon Koo (b. 1982) received her B.F.A. in Visual Art from Korea National University of Arts and in Painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her M.F.A. in Studio Art from the Graduate Center of Art at New York University. She has held solo exhibitions at Gallery 175 (2011, Seoul, Korea) and A.I.R. Gallery (2011, Brooklyn, NY, USA) and has participated in domestic and overseas exhibitions at Common Center (2014, Seoul, Korea), Multi Culture Complex Nemo (2014, Seoul, Korea), Haneun Gallery (2013, Seoul, Korea), St. Cecilia Parish (2010, Brooklyn, NY, USA), 80 Washington Square East Gallery (2010, NY, USA), The Common Gallery (2009, NY, USA), and The White Gallery (2008, Seoul, Korea).
Hyein Lee (b. 1981) received her undergraduate degree and completed her master’s course in Painting at Seoul National University. She has held solo exhibitions at Banjul (2014, Seoul, Korea), Daegu Museum of Art (2013, Daegu, Korea), kunstlerhaus bethanien (2013, Berlin, Germany), and Brain Factory (2011, Seoul, Korea), among other venues. She has been invited to participate in a number of group exhibitions, including at Common Center (2014, Seoul, Korea), Gallery Zandari (2013, Seoul, Korea), Zaha Museum (2013, Seoul, Korea), Gallery palais de seoul (2012, Seoul, Korea), Television 12 (2012, Seoul, Korea), Arko Art Center (2011, Seoul, Korea), Project Space Sarubia (2010, Seoul, Korea), the Ilmin Museum of Art (2009, Seoul, Korea), Alternative Space Bandi (2009, Busan, Korea), and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (2008, Gwacheon, Korea).
Leeje (b. 1979) received her B.F.A. and M.F.A. in Fine Art from Kookmin University. She has held solo exhibitions at Gallery Chosun (2014, Seoul, Korea), OCI Museum (2010, Seoul, Korea), Gallery King (2009, Seoul, Korea), Art Space Loop (2006, Seoul, Korea), and Chohung Gallery (2005, Seoul, Korea), and has participated in group exhibitions at venues that include Songwon Art Center (2013, Seoul, Korea), Gallery Hyundai (2012, Seoul, Korea), Art Space Pool (2011, Seoul, Korea), PKM Gallery (2011/2010, Seoul, Korea), Ilmin Museum of Art (2009, Seoul, Korea), Arko Art Center (2006/2004, Seoul, Korea), and the Seoul Museum of Art (2005, Seoul, Korea).
Yongseok Oh (b. 1974) received his undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering from Yonsei University and a B.F.A. and M.F.A. in Visual Arts from Korea National University of Arts. He has held solo shows at Gallery Button (2013, Seoul, Korea), Lotte Gallery (2012, Gwangju, Korea), Kumho Museum of Art (2011, Seoul, Korea), Artspace Mite (2009, Gwangju, Korea), Artspace Hut (2009, Seoul, Korea), and Gallery Jungmiso (2007, Seoul, Korea). He has participated in group exhibitions at the Seoul Museum of Art (2014, Seoul, Korea), LIG Artspace (2013, Seoul, Korea), Kumho Museum of Art (2011, Seoul, Korea), Hangaram Art Museum (2011, Seoul, Korea), Gallery Chosun (2011, Seoul, Korea), and Alternative Space Loop (2010, Seoul, Korea).
Noah Ryu (b. 1984) received his B.F.A. and completed M.F.A. course in Oriental Painting from Seoul National University. He has held solo exhibitions at Salon de H (2013, Seoul, Korea) and Brain Factory (2010, Seoul, Korea), and has participated in group exhibitions at Australia Korean Culture Institution (2012, Sydney, Australia), Nanji Gallery (2012, Seoul, Korea), and Alternative Space Miccle (2007, Seoul, Korea).
Hyeonkyeong You (b. 1985) received her B.F.A. and completed M.F.A. course in Fine Art from Seoul National University. She has held solo exhibitions at venues that include Hakgojae Gallery (2012, Seoul, Korea), OCI Museum (2011, Seoul, Korea), Gallery LVS (2010, Seoul, Korea), and Insa Art Center (2009, Seoul, Korea). She has participated in group exhibitions at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (2013, Gwacheon, Korea), Hakgojae Gallery (2011, Seoul, Korea), DOOSAN Gallery Seoul (2009, Seoul, Korea), Ilhyun Museum (2009, Gangwondo, Korea), and Shinhan Gallery (2008, Seoul, Korea).