021gallery: 「 Together Apart : Covet the senses of three. 」

[Together Apart, Covet the senses of three.] Exhibition Installation View

Feature image: [Together Apart, Covet the senses of three.] Exhibition Installation View

021gallery: 「 Together Apart : Covet the senses of three. 」

021gallery is pleased to present 「 Together Apart : Covet the senses of three. 」. This exhibition brings together the distinct sensibilities and expressions of three artists – Fanhee Lee, Hyunwoo Lee, and Kyumin Hwang in one space and through the senses captured by these three artists, exploring the relationship between art and life.

3. Kyumin Hwang_Beyond the Stones_2019_162.2¡¿130.3cm_Oriental Ink on Hanji, Oriental White
Kyumin Hwang, Beyond the Stones, 2019, Oriental Ink on Hanji, Oriental White
5. Kyumin Hwang_Boundaries_2020_180.0¡¿130.0cm_Oriental Ink on Hanji, Oriental white, Stone pigments
Kyumin Hwang Boundaries 2020, Oriental Ink on Hanji, Oriental white, Stone pigments

The 'Together Apart' exhibition opens up a world of senses in the space of painting and sculpture by young artists who are building their own worlds. Fanhee Lee with a mass, vividly and dynamically expresses the intrinsic power of sculpture beyond the harmony of form and color, like the field of a game. Hyunwoo Lee with the sculptures considered as images, even at the cost of discomfort, awakens the sense of the real to the human anxieties and conflicts that have become dulled by the overflow of fictional stimulating images through the imaged sculptures. Kyumin Hwang presents work that inscribes the accumulated narrative with a brush, creates a system similar to oriental painting, and enters contemporary calligraphy and painting into it. 

6. Kyumin Hwang_Manual 1-Boundaries_2021_156x106cm_Woodblock on Hanji, Watercolor Paint, Oil based Ink, Black Frame.jpg
Kyumin Hwang, Manual 1-Boundaries, 2021, 156x106cm, Woodblock on Hanji, Watercolor Paint, Oil based Ink, Black Frame.jpg

This 'Together Apart' exhibition presents love towards painting, sculpture to form, the essence of discomfort, and will -pursuing sense to an old future together apart.

9. Hyunwoo Lee_Untitled_2024_50x12x12cm_Mixed media
Hyunwoo Lee, Untitled, 2024, Mixed media

Fanhee Lee graduated with a degree in Sculpture from Hongik University. Lee pursues the form of painting and sculpture’s unconditional reversion, in other words, actualization of love towards it that transcends ideology and concept, and imagines a beautiful state in everything he sees, and the beauty of sculpture that is only possible with art is the source of his work. Such works instill a sense of orderliness and quiet tension. Furthermore, Lee’s circular system that underlies his works is a self-perpetuating pattern in which the leitmotif, elements, colors and forms that he addresses in one work influence the next, recalling and transforming existing images to reproduce them. These works plot the big composition as a mass and empty the details that fill up the parts of mass on the canvas. Lee does not chase the completion in a rush, instead bypasses it, leaving the painting to the screen and the screen to the form. This establishment of goal naturally becomes a process of reflection on convention, materiality, medium, direction, showing the journey of art beyond perfection. When viewing these sequences from the audience’s perspective or point of view, a cross-section of the totality of form is peeled and revealed. This is the sport Lee has been passionately engaging in recently. In this way, Lee’s work is summarized as a ‘sculpture game’. Beyond the harmony of shape and color, the intrinsic power of plastic is as vivid and dynamic as the field of a game.

8. Hyunwoo Lee_Untitled_2024_30x30x1.5cm_Mixed media
Hyunwoo Lee, Untitled, 2024, 30x30x1.5cm, Mixed media
10. Hyunwoo Lee_Untitled_2024_30x30x1.5cm_Mixed media
Hyunwoo Lee, Untitled, 2024, 30x30x1.5cm, Mixed media

Lee steadily applies impasto on thick matière and composes the plane with alla prima. The titles of his works are chosen by discarding the meanings of the collected words and finding only the ‘beauty’ of pronunciation. The artist constantly explores the beauty of synesthetic plastic that transcends time and space, oscillating between planful, agenda-driven work centered around sketch and impulsive, agile work. Fanhee Lee's canvas, a strong basis, is the sports field and a field of game for the painting-game. The thick matière's carving and emptying at the tenuous boundary between painting and sculpture face a tension and relaxation that cannot be seen anywhere else in front of Lee’s powerful formative completion, interacting together to imagine an even more beautiful state.

12. Hyunwoo Lee_Untitled_2024_30x5x4.5cm_Mixed media
Hyunwoo Lee, Untitled, 2024, 30x5x4.5cm, Mixed media

“Creating an object equipped with complete readiness, to explain through a chain of thought, the creation, in the case of painting equipped with complete readiness into a canvas with complete readiness, and from that to a form with complete readiness. Ultimately, it is about creating and suggesting an objective totality of complete readiness which leads from object(form), painting(materiality), canvas(medium), to a plastic(performance).“ "I treat art like a sport. I define myself as a sculptor, so what I pursue is formative completion. I want to score goals, not change the rules of the game."

From the Artist’s Note

13. Hyunwoo Lee_Untitled_2024_300x600x1.5cm_Mixed media
Hyunwoo Lee, Untitled, 2024, 300x600x1.5cm, Mixed media

Hyunwoo Lee graduated with a degree in Sculpture from Chung-Ang University and is currently actively holding exhibitions both domestically and internationally. Lee’s work is extensively experimental and unique. He creates a new image through things such as the sculpture’s size, texture and its relationship with space, which is expressed through the concept of resolution. Lee sees objects as they are and creates sculptures by applying repetitive force to the materials. To avoid humans being consumed by any situation or object, he pays attention to the objects’ materiality and strips their forms one by one, leaving as images becoming a medium between the public.

14. Fanhee Lee_Throttle_2023_240x142cm_Oil, Pencil on Canvas
Fanhee Lee, Throttle, 2023, 240x142cm, Oil, Pencil on Canvas

Lee takes the emotional absence such as anxiety and conflict of humans who have been dulled by the overflow of provocative virtual imagery, and even at the cost of discomfort, awakes a sense of realness through imaged sculpture. The exploration of the relationship between sculpture and sculpture, the redefinition of artificial supporter, the flow of creation and destruction of organic matter, the desire and questioning of social uniformity and autonomy, and the interaction of environment and object will continue. This is an image of the artist and our fierce struggle to maintain our existence in society, and an image of the process in surmounting and recovering. Despite the dislike of forced uniformity in the relationship between humans and society, Hyunwoo Lee’s chosen pursuit of uniformity leads to survival as an artist and desire and questions towards autonomous human beings, becoming the driving force behind his endless work.

16. Fanhee Lee_Shabu-Shabu-Shabu_2023_160x240cm_Oil, Pencil on Canvas``
Fanhee Lee, Shabu-Shabu-Shabu, 2023, 160x240cm, Oil, Pencil on Canvas

"The appropriateness of my work is centered on the act. In the process of deconstructing an object, the conductor defies the criteria assigned to the object, such as its function, meaning, and aesthetics. And in the process of reuniting them, the materials gathered into as a sculpture’s, none of their meaning, function, or aesthetics can stand on top of the value, but simply exist as a part of the body of the sculpture."

From the Artist Interview

Kyumin Hwang graduated with a degree in Oriental Painting from Hongik University. Hwang questions the standard and definition of oriental painting, proceeding the works that reinterprets the narratives of the past calligraphy and painting in a new way. This emphasizes that oriental painting is not simply following the traditions of the past, but is a medium that allows artists living in the present to express themselves freely. His work ‘Hwang's Manual of Eternal Classics’, shows the process of learning and understanding oriental painting, creating a manual, through a fictional character named ‘Hwang’ who is an art lover. While utilizing the traditional manual format to organize and express the elements of oriental painting, ‘Hwang’ work develops an original way to enter contemporary artwork with the past’s calligraphy and painting. However, Mr. Hwang does not simply imitate the calligraphy and painting of the past, but adds his own interpretation to create a new picture. This shows that oriental painting is not a fixed form, but rather a possibility for constant change and development, and the concept of oriental painting validated by leaning on the universality of the modern and Korea’s unique regionality, releases a sense of the present from the traditions inherent in us.

17. Fanhee Lee_Sanction_2023_180x180cm_Oil,Pencil on Canvas_Rappel_2023_240x120cm_Oil, Pencil on Canvas
Fanhee Lee, Sanction, 2023, 180x180cm, Oil,Pencil on Canvas; Rappel, 2023, 240x120cm, Oil, Pencil on Canvas

In addition to Hanji, Oriental ink and Agyo, Hwang uses a variety of media, including watercolor paint, oil-based ink and etc. to find a way to freely express calligraphy and painting while breaking away from the power of the name ‘Oriental painting’ has. While expressing realistic images, Hwang uses each piece of manual as units like dots, making the most of Hanji and Agyo’s distinctive quality and composing the surface densely without space. He recently has been working on creating other artists’ calligraphy and painting works into a manual. This project explores the relationship between the works of different artists by creating contemporary artists’ paintings into manuals and shows that Oriental painting is not limited to the work of individual artists, but can be connected to each other to create a larger story. The works on display in this exhibition will be reconfigured in the space, including works from the series ‘Hwang's Manual of Eternal Classics’, ‘Hwang’s Manual of Song’s Work’ and ‘Penetrating Stone’.

18. Fanhee Lee_Chute_2023_100x70cm_Oil, Pencil on Canvas
Fanhee Lee, Chute, 2023, 100x70cm, Oil, Pencil on Canvas

“I set up a system that likens an Oriental Painter’s Society, and my work involves entering my painting in it and operating. I place the law of ‘Jeonimosa(傳移模寫): Copying the masters and learning their techniques’ in the middle of the stream that leads from East Asia’s calligraphy and painting to Korea’s Oriental Painting, create an manual to learn the original painting and pictorialize it, then creating a new painting using the unit such as ‘Dot(點)’, ‘Stroke(劃)’, ‘Tak(擢): Individually stroking with the head of a brush’ which is a system’s framework. When the Six Laws(六法) were presented by ‘Sahyuk(謝赫)’, ‘Jeonimosa(傳移模寫)’ is introduced as the least important since it is the last of the Six Laws, but if we look at the attitudes towards objects or the pen-and-paper method, picture and manual, or ‘Yeoljeon(列傳): A book of biographies of several people written one after the other’, we see an endless history of past references at its center. The system created around this law aims to redefine Oriental Painting with a way of observing it by creating a pseudo-ecosystem in the exhibition space rather than worshiping or denying Oriental Painting.”

From Artist’s Note


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