Installation view of 《From Scenery》 © Space Willing N Dealing

Artist Han Sungwoo takes a serious attitude toward the act of painting. He seeks to identify the relationship between the object that sets the act in motion and the artist himself.

For example, from finding sensory elements in the formal qualities of the object itself, to trying to locate the artist’s psychological factors toward the object connected to his interest, and further to revealing emotion through color and immediate brushstrokes in the actual process of painting, the artist continues to pose honest questions as an artist through this act.

Rather than being synthesized into a single logical body, this intuitively responds to a non-narrative situation that continuously slips away. The artist attempts to express the environment that forms and relates to his surroundings through the general word “scenery,” and in this way, his attitude and process toward work, which place emphasis on expression, have a considerably conventional aspect. He also does not add romantic logic to the social factors with which he is involved.

The artist is currently in a situation where he is taking the steps as an artist solely through his passion for his work. It may not be easy to find the distinctive meaning of the act of painting, but the persistence and diligence with which the artist approaches his work will not fall behind those of other young artists.

Artistic practice does not necessarily need to be understood or fitted into things such as rationality and universality, which are expected and required in fields such as science, where accuracy is crucial.

His scenery seems to speak of several situations in which he finds himself. First, from the scale given by the work, one can infer the artist’s intention to directly convey his impression of and psychological aspect toward an excessive society. In addition, images such as parts of certain buildings on a school campus or rooftop railings that appear in his work occupy representative major parts of the impression given by buildings in the city center, and the artist pays attention to the reverse sides of such buildings or objects.

Or by emphasizing specific places that fail to stand out, such as the patterns of building floors, or by expressing the surfaces of objects with thick and heavy touches, it seems as though unstable hysteria, such as fear of the future held by modern people, anxiety, loss of self-esteem, and existential loneliness, has been projected.

The issue of anxiety has aspects that are somewhat typical and patternized, but it is also something that cannot be overlooked because it is an emotion that resonates with and pervades modern people to that extent.

In particular, his drawing works quietly contain the artist’s persistence and the desire he holds as an artist within society. In addition, small-scale works depicting billboards without advertisements reveal the artist’s firm gaze toward the reverse side of the frustrated competitive city. I send infinite support to his diligent steps as an artist who is searching for clues regarding the destruction of meaning contained in the work.

References