Shin Sung-Hy left us suddenly twelve years  ago, taking with him his passion and commitment for his work, his  natural modesty and curiosity. Along with his elders Kim Tschang-Yeul,  Park Seo-Bo and Lee U Fan, he is one of Korea's greatest visual artists.

Shin  Sung-Hy's work can be defined by the assembly of two gestures:  deconstructing and reconstructing. Thus the lacerations made to a canvas  which he then reconstructs by interweaving or knotting the lacerated  elements; or two paintings cut into strips which, by alternating,  constitute a third finished painting.

His work could be  compared to that of the french group Support-Surface, which has  transformed the notions of the stretcher, free canvases, and approaches  to the support or material, whether in painting or sculpture.

Shin  Sung-Hy's work, like that of many Korean artists, has its roots in a  very artisanal and manual approach that he transcends into a work of  art. His studio also involved the family collaboration of his wife and  children (or at least one of them, to my knowledge).

The  gallery is pleased to pay tribute to the artist Shin Sung-Hy by showing  two series of works which have never been shown and reflect a continuous  line of the spirit of his work, under new facets: paintings with pieces  torn and then glued back together in a seemingly random way leaving the  background transparent, and paintings where collages, material and  traces of the painter's tools become confused. Faithful to his  leitmotiv, he has never stopped making, destroying and reconstructing.

As  Gilbert Lascault wrote in the introductory text of his monographic book  Shin: "In all his works, he splits up, then reconstitutes a new whole.  He divides and restores. He undoes and makes. He scatters the elements  and reunites them. He renounces and is reborn."
Baudoin Lebon