in the Flow 20 Feb. - 19 Apr. 2025 _ Gallery KIWA_ London
in the Flow 20 Feb. - 19 Apr. 2025 _ Gallery KIWA_ London
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Installation View at Gallery KIWA
This is the first solo exhibition in London of the Korean artist Hong Sooyeon. She studied Painting in Seoul and New York, and now lives near Seoul. Over a period of thirty years, Hong Sooyeon has developed a distinctive art practice in which her paintings present the viewer with an area of focus, an amorphous, shifting, translucent ‘figure’, which is located within a flatly painted peripheral ‘ground’. This ‘figure’ seems to be three-dimensional; it is modelled as if in relation to some specific light source. But this strange ‘figure’ is not comparable to anything we are likely to see in figurative art, or in a photograph, or during normal daily life. Hong Sooyeon’s work remains mimetic – it is an imitation – but it is not mimetic of something with a recognizable appearance.
Installation View at Gallery KIWA
Hong Sooyeon is the critically acclaimed contemporary Korean female artist, active in Seoul and New York, who is leading Gallery Kiwa’s exhibition season with her first solo show in London. In the Flow is open from 20 February to 19 April at the new art space with thirteen exclusive and available artworks on display.
The Korean artist studied painting in Seoul and New York, and now lives near Seoul. Over a period of thirty years, Hong Sooyeon has developed a distinctive art practice in which her paintings present the viewer with an area of focus, an amorphous, shifting, translucent ‘figure’, which is located within a flatly painted peripheral ‘ground’. This ‘figure’ seems to be three-dimensional; it is modelled as if in relation to some specific light source. But this strange ‘figure’ is not comparable to anything we are likely to see in figurative art, or in a photograph, or during normal daily life. Hong Sooyeon’s work remains mimetic – it is an imitation – but it is not mimetic of something with a recognisable appearance. ( from the Article in arts&COLLECTIONS )
The visual characteristics of her ‘figure’ invite descriptive words like flow, liquidity, movement, homogeneity, formlessness, unfixity, translucency, vagueness, indeterminacy, convergence, divergence, blending, shifting chromatic intensity, etc. These characteristics match and connect up with - they imitate - something that can be experienced but is invisible to the naked eye (or the camera lens). This ‘something’ is reality-as-flow. When reality is perceived as ‘flow’ we are not experiencing it in accordance with the normal way of organizing the perceptual world, which is organizing into a pattern based on the separation between a ‘figure’ and a ‘ground’. We divide what we see into an area of focused attention, the ‘figure’, and leave the rest as a general field of unattended, unfocused, ‘ground’.
(from the Article in the artdaily )
The gallery said in its statement that it plans to mount four public exhibitions a year in its new London space. Its first show, “In the Flow,” is a solo presentation of works by South Korean artist Hong Sooyeon, which runs through April 19th. The artist is known for her works influenced by East Asian art philosophies, the Korean Minimalism (Dansaekhwa) movement, and postwar Western abstraction. Her works have been exhibited in institutions including the Saatchi Gallery in London and the Ilmin Museum in Seoul.
“We look forward to strengthening our connection to London, its culture, and its artists with our programming at this historic site,” added Chun.
( from the Article in Artsy )
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