Kim Hyuenjun | Fragile | urethane coated on recycled cardboards | 110 x 120 x 80cm | 2010
SUMMER SHOW 2011 The new annual exhibition series by Hada Contemporary, presents five young Korean artists in a conjoint context. Using both painting and sculpture, these artists all work with the conscious manipulation of gaze. Whether our gaze is made to feel voyeuristic, or made conscious through theatricality and surrealism, these works make the observer conscious of their status as viewer and consequently as a participant with a work of art.
KIM HYUENJUN
( b .1978 )
Kim Hyuen Jun’s works centre on value creation within ar t and society. Kim questions contemporary notions of value in a commoditized society by focusing purely on the immaterial – packaging – that which is frequently gifted in society and regularly discarded. His sculptures grant immediate worth to utilitarian materials. Dotted with bar codes, address labels and trademarks, Kim brings this protective cardboard into being: A chair, a shoe, and at times the priceless, a household pet such as a dog, begins to takes shape. These surreal objects and beings come to embody the confusion and conflict of a modern consumerist society. Kim believes consumerism to be one of the most impor tant changes in modern society. If society is now bound by its consumerist products, then is it effectively freed by its counterpar t? He deconstructs notions of the immaterial and draws attention to the decidedly arbitrary assignments of value. Kim received his BA and MFA in Sculpture from Dongguk University, Seoul. He has shown extensively in group exhibitions on Seoul and in major solo exhibition at KUMHO Museum in Seoul.
Cream | urethane coated on recycled cardboards 18 x 19 x 8 cm | 2009 (left) Frozen | urethane coated on recycled cardboards 53 x 60 x 16cm | 2010 (right above) Touch | urethane coated on recycled cardboards 52 x 70 x 20 cm | 2010 (right below)
PARK JIHYE
( b .1983 )
Park Jihye is a meticulous painter who concerns herself primarily with depictions of women. These women are often caught from behind, mid-movement. Despite the photorealist qualities of her paintings and her initial reliance on the medium for material, her paintings, unlike photographs, do not depict a moment within a movement but convey the sequence of movements and the entire essence of a moment. The lifelike qualities of her paintings interfere with a moment in time and she is able, through the interactions of movement, to engage the viewer into a time sequence. Without tension or preoccupation, her characters become familiar to the viewer and her paintings deny passive observation and encourage total absorption within the moment. Park received her MFA and BFA from Hong-Ik University. Since her first solo exhibition in 2007, she has been in a variety of group exhibitions including one at the Hongik Contemporary Museum of Art in 2007 and one at the Seoul Museum of Contemporary Art in 2011.
Regard 0603 | oil on canvas | 73 x 91 cm | 2006 (right) Gesture 0802 | oil on canvas | 162 x 97 cm | 2008 (below left) Regard 0902 | oil on canvas | 117 x 91 cm | 2009 (below right)
YOON BYUNGWOON
( b .1976 )
Yoon Byungwoon meticulously depicts dreamlike compositions, which play with ideas of space and the viewer’s removal from depicted scenes. His oil on canvasses convey remote landscapes dotted with unexpected objects – at times a toy and at others a fragmented Roman torso – his paintings recall the tradition of Surrealism but simultaneously exude a peace and mystery. Dreamlike, yet carefully staged and in a precise landscape that is as much vast as it is exact, his works retain a quiet drama. This drama is further punctuated by the painting of theatre cur tains in cer tain works, which draw a distinct line between the real and the unreal, confirming to the viewer that they are witnessing a staged set. Self-conscious and intriguing, Yoon allows us to glimpse his secret world without ever fully revealing its intent. Yoon graduated with a BFA and MA in Painting from Hong-Ik University. He has previously exhibited in solo shows in Seoul and Philadelphia and his works have been featured in group exhibitions and art fairs across Korea, China and the US. Yoon is the recipient of the Dong-A Ar t Prize, the Kyunghyang PAG ‘Today’s Young Artist Prize’ and the Danwon NewFrontier Misulseggae ‘Special Prize’ amongst others.
Soundless | acr ylic on canvas Intermission | oil on canvas | Intermission | oil on canvas | Intermission | oil on canvas |
| 130 x 162cm | 2010 (above) 53 x 33.4cm | 2009 (below left) 60 x 60cm | 2009 (below middle) 80.3 x 44cm | 2008 (below right)
LEE HORYON
( b .1978 )
Lee uses overlapping and interlocking images to weave desire into his oil paintings. Lee’s works begin as photographs which are then combined into Photoshop compositions for paintings on canvas. The photorealist works play with the photographic texture and the double vision techniques encountered within the genre, but unnaturally recreate this method. These paintings become a reproduction of an altered reality. Always maintaining a fixed distance from the model, Lee’s work separates the vague relationship between image and desire. Though the subject itself is revealing and seducing, the intimately inter twined images weave the viewpoint and gaze in such a way that the work becomes less an open seduction and more a psychological game of voyeurism and ways of looking. Lee graduated with a BFA in Painting from the College of Fine Ar ts, Hannam University and an MFA in Painting from Hong-Ik University. He has held two solo shows in Seoul and par ticipated in a variety of group exhibitions in Seoul, Toyko and Beijing. He was awarded the Second Award for the 2006 Seoul Fine Ar t Award and the Third Award for the Korean Fine Art Award in both 2005 and 2006.
Overllapping Image S100210L (right) oil on linen | 145.0 x 96.5 cm | 2010 Overllapping Image S100710L (below left) oil on linen | 112 x 162 cm | 2010 Overllapping Image 110107L (below right) oil on linen | 91 x 116.8 cm | 2011
YUN WEEDONG
( b .1982 )
Yun Weedong masterfully utilizes watercolours to create hyperrealist images of human figures. Carefully exploring every detail of his characters, Yun employs an extremely complex medium to achieve results rarely achieved in oil or acrylic much less watercolour. An exper t with his technique, Yun exposes brighter areas of painting to the texture of the paper and achieves an undeniable fragility in his images. Though the characters initially appear to be beautiful, upon closer inspection their flaws are uncovered – dir ty fingernails, body hair, veins and wrinkles – and the paintings take on remarkable emotion with each imperfection. Often painted against a dark background, his figures fade in and out of the darkness, as if drifting precariously through life and death with ashen skin. Deeply psychological, these paintings play on our religious understandings of life, death and afterlife. Yun graduated with a BFA and MA in Painting from Chung-Ang University. He has held two solo shows in Seoul and participated in a variety of group exhibitions in Seoul, Tel-Aviv and the US.
Contrast 33 watercolor on paper 180cm x 140cm 2010
This catalogue is published by HADA Contemporary to accompany the exhibition
SUMMER SHOW 2011 KIM HYUENJUN LEE HORYON PARK JIHYE YOON BYUNGWOON YUN WEEDONG 29 JULY - 3 SEPTEMBER 2011 No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any mean, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without prior written permission from HADA Contemporary Ltd. Published by HADA Contemporary Ltd.