021 Gallery is hosting <porosity : Gyeol, Barim, Kyeo> to ask the question that we need to think about as we are going through a phase transition while being closed off in the pandemic tunnel.

Porosity refers to the quality of substance that has a lot of small hole on the inside and the outside. Each substance is independent, yet the substances circulate and fuse together by entering through the very small and empty gaps, the holes, that’s within them. Porosity disassembles boundaries. The pandemic is deepening the boundary of anxiety. This exhibition consists of Gyeol by artist Kang Soojin, Barim by artist Kim Minjoo, and Kyeo by Chung Soyoung as the porosity that will disassemble the boundary. <porosity : Gyeol, Barim,Kyeo> will present the time for individuals to think about their own porosity that goes over the boundary of anxiety.

Kang, Soojin

Gyeol(結) – Connecting, Gathering, Tying, Hanging

Kang Soojin’s work is always on the boundary of design, handcraft, and molding. Emptiness and fullness exist as one form. The artist uses the traditional weaving techniques which she has learned through traveling various countries like Mexico, India, and Iceland herself to express them into modern language again.

As weaving is no longer limited to its own function in the works of the artist, she also does not limit the material of her work to threads. Fabric is originally made for some kind of ‘utility’; however, in the works of the artist, fabrics exist as an abstract form. The formative art called thread which is made with a thin line is light and yet each of the knot that appears on the surface has heavy presence. The tiring and exhausting work of weaving silk, linen, and hemp with hands is a knot that connects time, and at the same time, it is the evidence of the time that is caught as it was disappearing. In this exhibition, fabric works and the artist’s work procedure will be presented in videos.

The gyeol(結) of the artist which visualizes the invisible and abstract time with fabric disassembles the boundary of what is old and what is new. It is the porosity of the flowing time.

Kim, Minjoo

Barim – Two different colors coexisting in a harmony on a single space while keeping each of their unique color

Kim Minjoo paints ink on jangji, a traditional material used in oriental painting, accepts the limitation of bunchae which cannot produce many rich colors and actively uses it in her work. The artist depicts the idealistic nature which is fused with reality and imagination. She leads the visitors to the ‘thinking’ forest with the ambiguous scenes that is made by breaking down the boundary of different time and space.

 “My work is based on the foundation which consists of the visual elements that appear through the process of ‘answering’ the questions that I ask myself about the issues that occur when boundaries are created in reality. Sometimes I combine the world from the everyday life with the world of imagination together and bring idealistic nature into reality, and sometimes I depict the scenes where thoughts and introspections are created by portraying a deep pond, a hill, a forest, or an island. I try to escape from the everyday life and find the joy in imagination by expressing the points where different times, spaces, and roles lose their boundaries, mix together, and create ambiguity.

The escape through the artwork is meant to make time for people to think by social distancing them from the reality, but at the same time, it’s also meant to restore the sense of everyday life through the escape. You can only become relaxed enough to think by getting away from the tense reality, and that space is where introspection and healing occurs, so it calls for my area of questions and answers. Now I would like to share this area with others.“                                                    - Excerpt from the artist note

Barim which visualizes the ambiguity of language is the porosity of blank space that suggests a way of compromising by minimizing the disparate tension which comes from the boundaries of things that are traditional and things that are modern, pain and amusement, fantasy and reality, oneself and the others.

Chung, Soyoung

Kyeo(layer) – A layer which covers a surface or multiple surfaces

Chung Soyoung expands her plains of thoughts into the stratum, borders, and the ocean, and she explores the true nature of variable reality through her works which cross the boundaries of mediums.

 “I recognize that I am surrounded by the unrecognizable substances which have traveled through a very long time.

The earth that hugs my city and history, the border that runs across the ground, the ocean that flows without a stop, the universe that goes beyond the limitations of all recognition. These substances make up these spaces; which time did they travel through and how are they changing? The ability to cross the boundaries of times. The act of combining substances, like sculpting and installing, opens up the possibility that time can also be altered. It provides the way to sustain the limited time. I’m searching for the way to live in the past and future at the same time in the present. When the boundaries of time come down, we become free.“           - Excerpt from the artist note

<The Mirror of Lee Buddha(2021)> is the porosity of water. In 2019, the artist looked at the Amnokgang River which is the border across North Korea and China, and thought of the author of 『Amnokang River Flows』 (1946). Chung Soyoung gives shape to the time of Lee Buddha who let go of the anxiety that came from leaving her hometown to flow through the river, which erases the boundary, and recorded her yearning memories. She mixes chemical substances like silver nitrate, ammonia, and potassium hydroxide with water and sprays the solution over transparent glass. The glass reacts to the solution and returns light on its surface. The scene of Lee Buddha and the artist fills the layers. The mirror catches the scene of the exhibition hall, and we see ourselves over the scenes.

 <29.5 Sunday(2021)> is the work in which the artist recorded the evidence of time when there were only high tides left on the mudflat by bringing the coordinates of memories about low tides during the lunar cycle when the low tides go missing.

The kyeo(layer) of the artist which realizes the geological porosity through the evidence of property of matter is the concept of the time where the past, present, and future exist simultaneously.