The Landscape as Structure
The artwork of Chun Kwang Young and its development
It is widely recognized that the artwork of Chun Kwang Young is original and extraordinary in his use of medium and form. What distinguishes his artwork is the co-existence of two dimensional and three-dimensional aspects. It is artwork without parallel among its type, in that it simultaneously contains picturesque attributes and three-dimensional structures. Although, as planes, his works possess a pictorial character, they are not simply pictures that are processed on flat ground, because their two-dimensional surfaces are, themselves, composed of regular and structural formations. In addition, he does not utilize traditional means of painting, such as drawing lines or filling colors. His sequences are completed by the regular accumulation of specific structures. Assenblage – a method of putting objects together to surfaces – is the basis of his work. In fact, the structural units he creates are triangular and rectangular forms, of various sizes, that are cut out of Styrofoam, wrapped in Korean mulberry paper and tied with paper string.
The Korean mulberry papers used in Chun KwangYoung’s artwork are old printed documents that evoke antiquity by revealing traces of printing. The variation in his work process surely originates from his use of small pieces as structural units. The individual pieces wrapped in Korean mulberry paper do not, themselves, mean anything, just as individual bricks have no use. Similarly, as the use for bricks is recognised when they are laid to complete structures, each small piece of Styrofoam wrapped in Korean mulberry paper becomes part of an artwork when arranged with other pieces in a specific order. In this way, his work is born as a whole structure. It can be called a structural landscape because it is assembled in a specific order; perhaps it is more appropriate to call it the result of an advanced methodological process.
But how distinctive are Chun Kwang Young’s methods and structural units? Once, the artist confessed that he was inspired by numerous packages wrapped in mulberry paper hanging from the ceiling of the oriental pharmacy owned by his uncle, who was a Chinese medicine doctor. Staring at his structures, which stand as spikes, one could associate them with loads of medicine packages hanging from the ceiling. It seems possible that he may have reproduced, after an interval of many years, the packs of herbal medicine that he saw at his uncle’s pharmacy. The unexpected density, rhythm and warmth aroused by intertwining objects in similar shapes must have rippled in his unconsciousness. His early work possesses elements of coarseness; while the small units he uses conspicuously convey individualisation. However, as time passed, rather than individualism, his structures projected a sense of intensifying density that, by 2000, developed into Shaped Canvas (triangle, rhombus, sector, etc.) by enlarging the inner-self of diverse formality. Structuralization was buried and the whole composition revealed on the surface. Such a transfiguration not only suggests the nature of the artist’s thoughts, but also implies the magnitude of the change in his work, which came to be characterized by the visual affluence of dimension as landscape, rather than structuralization, by intertwining small units. Hence, the tranquil and lyrical flow of energy reveals the depth of Chun Kwang Young’s inner-thought. Naturalism comes into existence on its own, prior to the construction of the meaning of the artwork, and then the depth of Young’s inner-thought is revealed.
By any measure, Chun Kwang Young’s artwork is enhanced in the context of his methods and discoveries. In a sense, one could argue that the progression has been uncomplicated. However, when observing the inner side of his artistic career over 20 years, one cannot overlook his constant effort to use a variety of new structures as catalysts for endless change. It might be said that because his experimental mind never settles on a way to work, he is constantly pushing himself. By the mid-2000s, his work had undergone another change, and he was making restricted landscapes using visual illusions. Rather than creating volume by overcoming two-dimensionality, the artist attempted three-dimensionality by creating illusions on flat surfaces. The planes acquire volume, and three-dimensional change occurs within them. Background assumes new aspects, like diastrophism, and composition seems to be carried out by coalescing irregular units. The energy of dynamic change is represented by strong visual excitement. A more intimate existence appears, because the compositions are not simply flat ground, but create space; in a way, they create earths. The naturalism of the uneven surface and the shapes of puddles here and there evoke lively phenomena. Visual pleasure is doubled by the effects of visual hallucinations that evoke small creatures jumping out of the puddles.
Chun Kwang Young belongs to the generation that was positively influenced by Abstract. His way of structuralizing the pictorial space and accumulating each unit through repetition parallels the techniques used by later Abstract Expressionists. However, his work is original in its creative use of structural units, particularly in the gathering of these units into systematic wholes. From one point of view, he is liberated from any artistic contextualization. One cannot be sure how his artistic development will proceed. However, his artistic endeavour will continue to mature in a new direction towards a degree of completion and fulfilment of his oeuvre.
