Artist Statement 

The New Horizons of Image Exploration: Visualization of the Invisible 

Kwon, Hyun Jin

1. Summary 

Modernist art, which was a key issue in the last century, needs to be rethought in the 21st century. Abstraction in art in the previous century, for example, meant to eliminate the perceptible natural image thereby ultimately reducing the art into a two-dimensional form without any illusion. For instance, Piet Mondrian reduced the visible appearance of nature to a horizontal and vertical form, while Kazimir Malevich reduced it to the platonic absolute form. 

Such types of reductive art should be reconsidered in terms of its basis. 21st century art should not be an extension of the 20th century paradigm of reproduction, narration, and erasure and emptying of illusion. Today, art should be reconsidered from the direction of expanding the potential of images by turning our eyes toward the extra dimensions of time and space asserted through the scientific view of the world of our time. This may require us to find a solution (indicator) from the opposite direction from Wassily Kandinsky, one of the first abstract painters, Mondrian, and New York abstract artists, who attempted to conceptually reduce visible nature. For this purpose, there is a need to bring the images of the invisible world that exists as an extra into the visible world and to fuse them with the images of the present world in order to expand the possibilities of images. There is a need to actively create images of a world that can potentially exist by borrowing the deconstruction and reconstruction of time and space of the visible world by doing so. 

In order to do this, the images that must be dealt with in the 21st century should be liberated from the ideological elements such as the traditional nature or form by overcoming the distinction between abstraction and conception. The imagination that emerges during this progress should be the center of the image. 

2. Aspect of Ideas

My recent works do not deal with abstract images in the sense of extracting forms from the same natural images as before. Rather than dealing with abstract paintings where the content of nature is emptied, they instead deal with abstract images by fusion and hybridism in the opposite context. They begin by drawing as visual images the imaginary illusions that form in the eyes when light is observed with the eyes closed for a while in order to escape from the images that can be seen by the eyes. This is also a method of pursuing the abstract thinking from the past in the opposite way. I prefer images that can be created by borrowing fusion and expansion through endless construction, deconstruction and reconstruction. New images that are different from the intended images can be created in this process, yet there is an anticipation of more new and unfamiliar images arising from the work of another kind of visual unconsciousness. In the process of attempting new arrangements of the flow of light, the flow of colors, and the flow of paints among others and mixing and rearranging them, a preference is developed for the extra things that move outside the canvas, rather than the things within the canvas. This is to anticipate the creation of unexpected imaginary things. 

The images that appear in my recent works, therefore, are primarily imaginary abstract images. Most of these were visually expressed using a computer, based on the inspiration from the concept of extra dimensions presented by the string theory of modern quantum physics. These symbolize the connections between the imaginary strings formed by quantum vibrations described by the proponents of superstring theory and have the vibration pattern and energy of an imaginary string that cannot be seen by the eyes. These include the attempt to present a visual illusion by creating a bubble effect such as water droplets. These images are not an abstraction of real-life images. Rather, they are imaginary images created through transformation and fusion with abstract thought as the starting point. They could be described as abstractions of our time that were created through transformation and rearrangement into diverse forms. I believe that imaginary images created in this manner will continue to exist in various forms of a pluralistic world. I expect that my abstract imaginary images will seem life-like by stimulating the imagination and the unconscious of the viewers. 

3. Aspect and Materials and Method

In order to effectively convey variable abstract images, I have been engaging in stereoscopic painting and media work and linking and fusing these two types of work together to expand the boundaries of images. My stereoscopic painting work, which can be observed in the Visual Poetry Sculpture series, involved giving curves to stainless steel in order to borrow from the manipulation of modified canvases, after which colors were painted and a glossy appearance was added to create a fluid, sculpture-like stereoscopic space on a fixed plane. This was to extend the two-dimensional plane into a three-dimensional complex system. 

The intention behind my media work was to create an illusion for the viewers using the media characteristics of images as though they were viewing images that were endlessly moving. This was to extend the existing abstract image to arouse the visual and tactile senses of the viewers. For this purpose, I borrowed from media art to fuse it with traditional images and extend upon them to embody analog images manually in a digital environment. I expect that the convergence of media materiality and technology presented in traditional paintings will maximize the extensibility of art, based on the autonomy and originality of art, instead of a mere combination of technology and art. 

Visual Poetry Sculpture demands that you see what you have not seen, and not just what you wish to see. They are intended to present visual fantasies, through which the viewers can think through their closed eyes and the eyes of their hearts in addition to their senses, and to present the real and imaginary worlds outside the canvas. The fantasies that can be seen through my works are not only visually perceived. They must be perceived by the eyes and by touch. They are not just spaces that are drawn by one perspective; they are spaces formed by diverse and variable abstract forms and colors that cannot be understood from a single viewpoint. They must be recognized through synesthesia including the tactile sense in order to stimulate the sense of vision from diverse viewpoints, instead of with only the sensory point of view. 

4. Expected Results 

I hope that my recent Visual Poetry Sculpture series serves as a mirror that reflects our hopes, dreams, secrets, emotions, etc. which vividly live and breathe, rather than hardened images from the previous century. This is to present the viewers with an impression that they are dreaming or reading a lyrical poet through the arrangement and movement of colors. 

My recent works present the convergence of at least two genres: painting and poetry. In order to maximize the poetic expressions from the visual perspective, the level of saturation was increased by 7 to 8 levels, and colors with extremely high chroma were used. Abstract images were accentuated as much as possible by creating a surface effect of the stains, created due to the variable surface effect of paints and the material properties, similar to that of bubbles. This was to induce a strong stimulation and maximize the expressive effect. The significance of the bubble effect that arises between the color fields along with the high-saturation color fields is that it is an attempt to increase the expressive effect by shattering the monotony presented by the conventional abstract painting. The results of creating a sense of mystery, accompanied by poetic illusions and fantasies, will be created here. 

As such, in the case of my recent works, the significance of seeing was approached from. Just as Kandinsky saw something he had never seen before when he first discovered abstract painting, we must investigate into abstract painting from the world beyond what we had learned in art. We need to escape from the existing world of abstract and borrow the deconstruction and rearrangement processes so as to create a pluralistic world of today.