Musical imagery has permeated a bare space, which is yet-to-be named but screaming for its purpose to be fulfilled. Although these images in the space are neither strikingly stimulating nor overwhelmingly demanding in terms of being defined in a certain way, they will slowly tickle the viewers’ senses. The exhibition Stuffs! at Kim Kim Gallery is comprised of abstract drawings and paintings by Nakhee Sung, figurative paintings and drawings by Nakyoung Sung (a.k.a. Nakion), and site-specific wall drawings as part of the sisters’ collaborative works. The space itself is a construction site that has not yet transformed into one with a definite function.
While Nakhee Sung takes time to encapsulate sensations of moments onto a picture plane, Nakyoung Sung traverses different genres, such as writings, music, drawings and paintings, which permit her to lose control, and expresses herself impromptu. Nakhee Sung is known for her series of abstract drawings, paintings, and wall drawings, which utilize vibrant colors, fluid lines, irregularly-shaped blobs and geometric forms. Her works each portray a visually amusing phenomenon and rhythmically buzzing tune. On the other hand, Nakyoung Sung’s works can be understood not as individual pieces, but jointly as a whole. Her paintings and drawings have a figurative appearance that is comparable to Nakhee’s. However, Nakyoung insists that the figures in the paintings are only symbols amidst many other elements that convey certain atmospheres or sensations she encounters.
The exhibition space is not an ordinary white cube— rather it is raw and unfinished. Likewise Nakhee Sung and Nakyoung Sung’s site-specific wall drawings are in no conventional sense of “finished.” This allows the viewers to continue to follow what the artists have left unfinished. It is fascinating to see how the drawings on the wall and the ground penetrate and run through the paintings hanging in the shared space. Nakhee’s Interior (2006), Escalade (2008), and Portal (2008), made of acrylic and flashe paint, look as if they possess condensed energy that is about to explode and create an alternate space. While the paintings retain vivid planes, the drawings gush from and at the same time stretch into the paintings. The endless stream of sojourn and flight yields balanced weight. Nakyoung Sung’s figurative paintings (she claims they do not represent particular persons, but only serve as symbolic elements, and thus, her “figurative” work can be read as abstract) and graffiti-like drawings emerge from the wall and become the wall themselves. Her paintings and wall drawings, seamlessly woven together, deliver intimacy. Pale figures, mostly heads, often showing up in Nakyoung’s paintings, Badges (2011) or Untitled (2011), look somewhat lost as if they are trying to find their missing body parts, which the artist draws on the other side of wall. Doodle-like texts as part of the wall drawings seem to give viewers a clue to solve a mystery that is suggested by the fragments of imagery even though the artists do not aim to put any cohesive narrative on their work.
The wall drawings bind the sisters’ work tightly together. Since Nakhee Sung and Nakyoung Sung share a musical sensibility, their conversations are like listening to music without any comprehensive melody. The space itself becomes an abstract entity of harmonized music; loose wiring sticking out of the rusty wall, flaky wall plaster, and pipe insulation that is half peeled off act as percussion instruments; wall drawings formulate melodies like synthesizers or a string instruments, along with deep brass tone-like paintings. The title Stuffs! envelopes both artists’ abstract work and the temporal specificity of the exhibition space, which is not-yet-defined and open-ended.
Jee Young Maeng
성낙희, 성낙영 자매의 2인전 <Stuffs!>는 특정한 형식이 없는 자유로움을 보여준다. 거대한 담론이나 현학적인 개념으로 무장된 작품들을 보는 것에 식상해 있던 관객이라면 이번 전시는 작품을 그 자체로 '느끼기'에 전념할 수 있을 것이다. 이들의 조합은 자매라는 둘의 관계를 넘어서서 임시적 공간이라는 전시장소의 특성, 두 작가의 시각적으로는 상이한 작품이지만 아이러니하게도 작품의 접근방법에 있어서 드러나는 묘한 유사성 등의 흥미로운 읽을거리를 풍성하게 제공해 준다.
...성낙희는 이차원의 공간에 화려한 색채의 리듬감 있는 즉흥연주와 같은 회화작업을 해왔다. 다양한 색상과 기본적인 조형요소로 화면 속에 추상적인 공간을 짓는 그녀의 작품은 드로잉, 벽화, 유화등으로 표현된다. 반면 성낙영은 한 매체에 국한되지 않고 음악, 회화의 장르를 넘나들며 입체적으로 자기 세계를 구축해 왔다. 성낙영의 회화는 그녀가 만드는 음악에서 확장되어 나오기도 하고 그 반대가 되기도 한다.
이번 전시에서 전시 공간은 그 자체가 두 작가의 또 다른 작품이 된다. 표현하는 것에 거침이 없고, 음악적 감성을 공유하며 만들어진 이들의 작품은 한 공간 안에서 서로 철저하게 분리되어 있는 듯 보이지만, 비가시적 공감대를 형성하고 있다. 전시장에 들어서는 관객은, 마치 성낙영의 독특한 전자음으로 된 언더그라운드 음악이 공간 전체에 공명하며 전시된 작품들과 이들을 서로 연결해 주는 듯 보이는 월드로잉을 타고 새로운 선율의 음악이 만들어 지는 공감각적인 경험을 하게 될 것이다. ...
No comments:
Post a Comment