Clothing, Faith and Hidden Passages
Clothing-Passage-10/12 - 2010 Jeon Seong Kyoo The Korean mind or "attitude" to life and its fundamental necessities such as shelter, food and clothing has to be clearly understood or trying to make sense of Korean art is impossible. Korean "culture" has been developing over an approximate 5000 year period although true socio-political complexity only began c1500BC at the start of the "Mumun" pottery period. This is a singularly distinct indigenous culture with noble longevity, deserving admiration, having survived multiple invasions, colonisation, division, brutal autocrats and severe hardships so even trying to approach the topic of Korean "art" in order to understand it can be fraught with misconceptions when wearing "Western cultural bias spectacles".
The Korean people are so inextricably bound up with their "Koreaness" from an "homogenous social perspective" that apprehending this sensibility is extremely difficult for outsiders. This inherent sense of "being" or "mind" determines how Koreans organise social, political and cultural constructs. The attitude to "artists" in contemporary Korea is aggregate and embodies a dualistic view of "respectful nobility" but also "utilitarian ambivalence." The reason for this complexity is intrinsically tied to a deep collective yearning for "success" and "status" fuelled by envy. Once driven traditionally by an elite, hierarchical feudal system this is now charged by its transmuted remnants compiled together with a mishmash of various foreign systems and increasingly exacerbated by "commerce" and "extreme" wealth. Koreans have totally embraced artistic production in any milieu as "product" and "vehicle" for personal success. This is nowhere demonstrated more clearly than in the "Hallyu" (wave) pop phenomenon that has swept Asia for the last 15 years launching many a singer or actor into stardom and spawning a burgeoning entertainment products sector. Korean identity is deeply bound up with this "success" producing "pride" for a nation and "affluence" for the "individual." Capitalism and the global market economy then, have opened up increased opportunities for the Korean arts sector and this is shaping the current collective outlook towards art and its purpose in this complex modern society.
The Korean people are so inextricably bound up with their "Koreaness" from an "homogenous social perspective" that apprehending this sensibility is extremely difficult for outsiders. This inherent sense of "being" or "mind" determines how Koreans organise social, political and cultural constructs. The attitude to "artists" in contemporary Korea is aggregate and embodies a dualistic view of "respectful nobility" but also "utilitarian ambivalence." The reason for this complexity is intrinsically tied to a deep collective yearning for "success" and "status" fuelled by envy. Once driven traditionally by an elite, hierarchical feudal system this is now charged by its transmuted remnants compiled together with a mishmash of various foreign systems and increasingly exacerbated by "commerce" and "extreme" wealth. Koreans have totally embraced artistic production in any milieu as "product" and "vehicle" for personal success. This is nowhere demonstrated more clearly than in the "Hallyu" (wave) pop phenomenon that has swept Asia for the last 15 years launching many a singer or actor into stardom and spawning a burgeoning entertainment products sector. Korean identity is deeply bound up with this "success" producing "pride" for a nation and "affluence" for the "individual." Capitalism and the global market economy then, have opened up increased opportunities for the Korean arts sector and this is shaping the current collective outlook towards art and its purpose in this complex modern society.
Clothing Gaze-10/1 - 2010 Jeon Seong Kyoo Jeon Seong Kyoo is an artist of integrity working within a complex system, a painter/explorer who has been working with clothing as painting support for more than fifteen years. He is working in the midst of this "hotbed" of contemporary cultural activity and in some ways is making art that is both an "affirmation" and "repudiation" of the cultural excess he witnesses daily. The sense of fragmentation and dislocation that many are experiencing from the stress of this economic pressure cooker comes through in the haunting dance of figures and clothing in Seong Kyoo's paintings.
There are other artists like Christian Boltanski, Kaarina Kaikkonen and Jarod Charszewski who use clothes in large site specific installations to make commentary on human society and relationships. Rather than developing installation strategies of hanging, piling, sculpting and dissembling clothes in a space, Seong Kyoo reworks them and paints on them, investing them with new cultural significance. Clothes are viewed by him as a kind of device linking human culture and spiritual life, a palimpsest of experience and event. The effect is the transformation of everyday garments into objects of mediation, cultural objects, the utilitarian invested with transcendent new life. These objects haven't multiplied themselves into monumental configurations of garments piled or hung out in public spaces. On the contrary, Seong Kyoo's paintings retain their status as "image" destined to inhabit only "wall" space, differentiating themselves from artworks that accrete to ceilings and floors and parade through outdoor spaces. Seong Kyoo's paintings start off as cast-off garments that are moulded into shapes, flattened and then painted with clothing and body motifs. The commonplace then is elevated to art status with serious cultural intent destined for gallery walls. The artist is focused on the integrity of the painting project and pushing the boundaries of what is possible with pictorial conventions governing plane and scale.
There are other artists like Christian Boltanski, Kaarina Kaikkonen and Jarod Charszewski who use clothes in large site specific installations to make commentary on human society and relationships. Rather than developing installation strategies of hanging, piling, sculpting and dissembling clothes in a space, Seong Kyoo reworks them and paints on them, investing them with new cultural significance. Clothes are viewed by him as a kind of device linking human culture and spiritual life, a palimpsest of experience and event. The effect is the transformation of everyday garments into objects of mediation, cultural objects, the utilitarian invested with transcendent new life. These objects haven't multiplied themselves into monumental configurations of garments piled or hung out in public spaces. On the contrary, Seong Kyoo's paintings retain their status as "image" destined to inhabit only "wall" space, differentiating themselves from artworks that accrete to ceilings and floors and parade through outdoor spaces. Seong Kyoo's paintings start off as cast-off garments that are moulded into shapes, flattened and then painted with clothing and body motifs. The commonplace then is elevated to art status with serious cultural intent destined for gallery walls. The artist is focused on the integrity of the painting project and pushing the boundaries of what is possible with pictorial conventions governing plane and scale.
Clothing-Passage 10/14 - 2010 Jeon Seong Kyoo There is a distinctly unique approach to the "ritual" of clothing the body that sets Koreans apart from their Asian neighbours and Jeon Seong Kyoo is working with this understanding in mind. Clothes are linked to specific ideas of comfort, covering, custom and status that over a long time have metamorphosed into a structure within which Koreans locate their "unique" image as a group of people. The loose flowing robes that served to wrap the body long ago eventually became a distinct clothing style named “Hanbok.” This fashion was influenced originally by the Chinese but later became a distinct fashion entity that gave Koreans their “Korean look.” This look still serves as “the” reference point for Korean style although Western design sense and “brand” have impinged into and been incorporated into the Korean fashion regime. Jeon Seong Kyoo takes this difference as a point of departure and invests clothing items with a metaphysical sense of "hidden passage" in an attempt to transcend time and space. In the artists own words, "I have applied clothing forms that imply human cultural life, as a passage between an invisible, intangible, metaphoric world and the visible, tangible, organic world." Clothing then becomes the "intermediary" between the seen and the unseen, a talismanic object acting as enabler to that which is "beyond" and this in accordance with ancient shamanic rites. The artist further heightens the "aura" of his images to facilitate this "passage" by painting delicate dot outlines of sets of clothing sans human forms, floating in and out of his interwoven, rhizome entwined backgrounds. The visual effect isn't dissimilar to religious ikons of the late middle ages in Europe although the abstract skein-like swirls of paint are more expressionistic and evocative of delicately laced snail trails. The final visual effect of these meandering lines of paint is mildly hallucinatory as the gaze attempts to untangle ghostly disembodied forms from what seems like a cosmic swirl of particulate debris. The sensation isn't unpleasant but the viewer is left with a sense of dislocation and unease. This is the "sublime" at play.
Jeon Seong Kyoo is fully aware of this effect in his work and states," the inability of reason to easily comprehend the forms in my work opens the imagination to all kinds of possibilities as it struggles to navigate these painted surfaces." These textured, shaped images are analogous of many things yet appear alien to the modern sensibility. Organic forms and string-like figures float, bend and stretch in wild abandon as if in a cacophonous, primitive dance or cosmic storm. The uncertainty of what is seen leaves the viewer anxious and looking for closure and Seong Kyoo's paintings defer that moment. The artist seeks to enhance the power of certain visual strategies to increase the volume of the sublime in the viewers experience with the work. He is conversant with certain theories relating to particle movement in quantum physics as well as "string theory" and acknowledges that a certain debt is owed by science to art for making these realities "visible." For the artist there is an innate sense of movement, of these oscillating particles, incessant waves flowing pervasively, stating,"i can feel and see them with my eyes closed." The attempt to make visible what is sensed is in itself sublime and not easily understood but if elements are conjoined successfully the effect ... apprehensive and unnerving!
Jeon Seong Kyoo is continually looking for his "hidden passage" somewhere near the intersection of clothing, paint, artistic ingenuity and faith and though he knows he may never find it, he also knows that it's out there waiting and that's the best reason for painting, so he continues on!
I'm inspired by Jeon Seong Kyoo because he continues to believe in painting and all its inexhaustible possibilities. In a time of cultural cynicism and political correctness it takes backbone to stay the course and complete in good faith. There is integrity in pursuing what you believe in even if no-one else does.
To view a recent catalog of Jeon Seong Kyoo's work click below.
Jeon Seong Kyoo is continually looking for his "hidden passage" somewhere near the intersection of clothing, paint, artistic ingenuity and faith and though he knows he may never find it, he also knows that it's out there waiting and that's the best reason for painting, so he continues on!
I'm inspired by Jeon Seong Kyoo because he continues to believe in painting and all its inexhaustible possibilities. In a time of cultural cynicism and political correctness it takes backbone to stay the course and complete in good faith. There is integrity in pursuing what you believe in even if no-one else does.
To view a recent catalog of Jeon Seong Kyoo's work click below.
| hidden_passage_exhibition_catalogue.pdf |
