Surface: Yoon Suk One, Bae Min Young
Gallery Baton is pleased to present Surface, a group exhibition of the works by Yoon Suk One (b. 1983) and Bae Min Young (b. 1985), from July 25th to August 23rd at Apgujeong exhibit space.
In the midst of the time where the dominant position of painting within art history has partly faded, young artists who are taking their first step as full-time painters must think about how the temporarily relative recession of painting could affect them. Considering the current atmosphere in which large exhibition space and stimulus have become imperative, there also is a skeptical view about what kind of direction the repercussions created by the paintings of young painters could elicit.
Nevertheless, it has been proven through the ages of art history that preferences of genres and fashion cannot be fixed. In particular, since the 1980s the present condition of contemporary art in which individual genre has advanced within the vague and broad framework called postmodern could set forth a counterargument to the partial skepticism about painting as a genre.
The reason that Yoon Suk One and Bae Min Young, who are taking their first step as full-time painters within this external environment, are receiving attention is that both artists put eventual intention point of their artworks on 'how to spread' condensed thought and consideration with a consistent theme, not on 'how the final result will be shown'. The latter case could harm the individuality of the artists as a consequence, since it cannot be free from the temptation of going along with the current trends. However, in the case of the former point, what they focus on the final product becomes 'a point where the stream of consciousness stops' through the internally incessant unity and struggle between the theme and realized expression. Therefore, it presents a moment in which the artists themselves discover for the first time the central theme that they tried to unfold. Thus, the surface of the canvas, which is the end product, becomes an essential space for the artists to experience the visualization of their senses.
The Surface of Yoon Suk One is condensed sentiment. By choosing the images of statues made in various periods and places, the artist has focused on the imprint of the time contained in the statues, in which their outer appearance has been transformed through erosion, weathering, natural disaster or war. The artist creates new scenery by adding his state of mind as he accepts the scene of the statues as a landscape. The process of converting the original landscape in various ways like maximizing or deleting the texture of the original scenery could be called a psychologically duplicating process of recording what is already gone and what is about to fade away. Ceaselessly retracing the irreversibility of time, his works have conducted the utmost involvement of emotions, and as the works progress the images, once used as subject matter, become transformed and eventually become estranged from the original meaning. Moreover, they create the unprecedented screen of imagery and texture.
Bae Min Young has explored Surface in a direction devoted to how people today worry about and pursue the way they are 'shown' to others than their own independent needs. The starting point of her works is her empirical gaze of modern people, how they want to belong to one of the subjects within the landscape and confirm their presence as a third person by the eyes of others. Bae Min Young's Surface includes both brilliant and empty world brought about by dual elements of paradox and irony thrown at each other from the bipolar ends, such as the relationship among the dismissed elements on the canvases, man-made objects and human beings, the possession that penetrates this relationship and the emptiness of consumption, and reality versus imagination. The reality and desire projected on the surface will forever remain as love-hate relationship.
