PLACES OF MEMORIES, CITIES GUK DAEHO
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PLACES OF MEMORIES, CITIES GUK DAEHO
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cover; bangidong (seoul) oil on canvas 97 x 146 cm 2012
venezia-01 / oil on canvas / 168 x 112 cm / 2010
ellis street 02 / oil on canvas / 60 x 60 cm / 2013
samchungdong-02(seoul) / oil on canvas / 97 x 146 cm / 2012
firenze-01 / oil on canvas / 80 x 120 cm / 2010
russinan hill-01(sf) / oil on canvas / 97 x 146 cm / 2013
paris-24 / oil on canvas / 160 x 240 cm / 2009
PLACES OF MEMORIES, CITIES GUK DAEHO
Viewers who first encounter the works by artist Daeho Guk may mistake his blurry paintings for out-of-focus photographs. While Guk was traveling through New York, Paris, and numerous cities of Italy, the camera’s ability to capture an instantaneous impression of each city inspired him to create his paintings. The photographic scenes taken by the artist as a foreign visitor feature accidental moments, such as the shadow of a tree cast along a narrow street, the glistening sunlight reflecting off an apartment window or the sparkling sunlight that happens to be reflecting off the hood of a parked car, that portray ordinary moments of everyday life we all encounter. Daeho Guk’s paintings arose from his appreciation for the camera’s “blurry effect”. In his paintings, the out of focus areas exist in the shape of “light drops”. As they form wherever sunlight touches, they can appear anywhere. Created from blurred contour lines and diffused light, the “light drops” simultaneously emphasize the artist’s subjective interpretation as well as the limitations of reality. By taking photographic images of these unfamiliar places, he recreates the landscapes with oil paint on canvas. Throughout history, photography has served as a storage space for time and place in preserving our memory. A photograph is an objective representation of a reality and at the same time a subjective selection of a single moment in time. Skillfully utilizing the dual nature of photographs in his paintings, Guk takes the memory of the places he visited as a foreigner and subjectively recreates them in his studio. This may be interpreted as how emotions override our visual experience when we recall the past. The sunlight, shadows and light drops that appear in Guk’s paintings reduce the realism of reality, serving as an intermediary vehicle that allows us to see beyond the urban landscapes and enter into the artist’s emotional world. Thus, these paintings portray cities beyond their appearance and evoke the illusion of places the viewer has visited.
ESSAY HWA-YOUNG ANNA YOO, DIRECTOR OF ART ANGEL COMPANY
His long time explorations in brush movements and investigations into the representation of planar surfaces, reproduction, relationship between three-dimensional objects and space and color schemes have led to his present day paintings. The current exhibition at TAKSU gallery features major paintings reinterpreting the numerous cities visited by the artist. Although each city is distinguishable by the architectural styles respective to each location, the paintings are unified through their color, composition, and intimacy that people today desire expressed. Furthermore, Daeho Guk’s city series offers an image of a utopian urban landscape that people yearn to live in; a place that exceeds an urban life imbued with individualism and a loss of humanity. The emotional warmth that is brought to life by the artist’s touch of the brush and his color scheme gives us great reason to wonder this may be why the artist’s works exist as paintings and not as photographs.
hyde street(sf) / oil on canvas / 70 x 105 cm / 2013
napoli-10 / oil on canvas / 112 x 162 cm / 2011
firenze-06 / oil on canvas / 89 x 130 cm / 2010
o’farrell street(sf) / oil on canvas / 60 x 60 cm / 2013
EDUCATION 1998 Department of Arts Plastiques, Paris National University (MFA) 1996 Department of painting, Ecole nationale superieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris (MFA) 1992 Department of Painting, College of Fine Arts, Seoul National University (BFA) SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2015 Place of memory, Cities TAKSU Galleries Singapore 2013 San Francisco Soohoh Gallery, Bundang 2012 Seoul atelier aki, Seoul 2011 ITALIA Grimson Gallery, Seoul 2010 New York, Paris, Roma Space INNO, Seoul 2009 Paris Gallery WON, Seoul 2007 New York VIT Gallery, Seoul 2006 retrospective (1996-2006) Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul 1999 Kumsan Gallery, French Cultural Service, Seoul 1998 Vitry Municipal Gallery, Vitry-sur-Seine, France ART FAIR & BIENNALE 2015 ArtStage 2015 & Interface TAKSU Galleries Singapore 2014 Singapore Art Fair (Soohoh Gallery), Singapore 2013 Hong Kong Contemporary 13 The Excelsior, Hong Kong Art Taipei (Gallery Mark), Taipei World Trade Center, Taiwan 2012 Red Dot Miami Art Fair Miami 2010 Bangladesh Biennale Dhaka, Bangladesh Sydney Art Fair 2010 (Soohoh Gallery), Sydney, Australia 2009 KIAF (Gallery Won), COEX, Seoul 2008 Singapore Art Fair (Gallery Won), Singapore
GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2014 Between Sense And Sensibility TAKSU Galleries Singapore Hommage a Whanki ll, Whanki Museum, Seoul 2013 Facade Busan Busan Museum of Art, Busan 2011 Dual Images Pohang Museum of Steel Art, Pohang Color x Art x Play x 3 Aram Art Gallery, Goyang 2010 Unique & Useful Inter alia Art Company, Seoul 2009 Wonderful Pictures Ilmin Museum of Arts, Seoul Color x Art x Play Aram Art Gallery, Goyang Another Masterpiece New Acquisitions Gyeonggi Museum, Ansan New Acquisitions National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea 2008 Lead in KOREA WITH Space, Beijing Icon of Asia - Asian contemporary EM Art Gallery, Beijing Art in Busan 2008 Busan Museum of Art, Busan 1997 Novembre a Vitry, Vitry City Museum of Art, Vitry, France Salon of Jeune Peinture, Space EiffelBranly, Paris 1996 Salon of Montrouge, Montrouge, France 1995 SBS European Art Competition, Swiss Bank House, London COLLECTIONS National Museum of Contemporary Art, Busan Museum of Art, Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Gwangju Museum of Art, Paris Croix St-Simon Hospital, France, Vitry Municipal Gallery, France, Perriet-Jouet, France, Seoul National University, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Marriott Yeouido Park Centre-Seoul, Tomato savings bank, Image21, U.Square, Gwangju Sheraton Incheon Hotel, Sigongsa, Art Bank Korea, Daelim Museum, Handok Pharmaceuticals co, 63 Sky Art Museum
PLACES OF MEMORIES, CITIES GUK DAEHO
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ISBN 978 - 981- 09- 4768- 2 PAPERBACK
978 - 981- 09- 4769- 9 E-BOOK
KUALA LUMPUR
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TAKSU is a leading contemporary art gallery and specialist in Southeast Asia. Representing selections of fine art with distinctive urban edge, we are at the forefront of contemporary art in this region. TAKSU works to forge a platform for established and emerging artists to share their pool of creativity and knowledge through its residency programs and exhibitions. Encapsulating the true meaning of the word TAKSU; divine inspiration, energy, and spirit. Suherwan Abu Director, TAKSU Galleries
BALI
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Essay Hwa-Young Anna Yoo / Art Angel Company Graphic Design Jeffrey Lim / Studio 25 Printer Unico Services Artworks & Images Š 2015 Guk Daeho This publication may be reproduced in any form for academic, editorial and/or non-commercial purposes without special permission from the artist(s) and gallery, with acknowledgement of the source. For other purposes, prior consent is needed.
_ ISBN 978 - 981- 09- 4768- 2 PAPERBACK
978 - 981- 09- 4769- 9 E-BOOK