AXIS 2022

Rhee Donghoon · Lee Hyunwoo · Cho Hyori

The annual exhibition 'AXIS' held at Gallery 021 is designed to lay the foundation for creative activities for talented new artists to devote themselves to their work.

The 'AXIS 2022' exhibition will be held as a 3-person exhibition in the Beomeo Pavilion and a solo exhibition in the Sangdong Pavilion.

In the Beomeo Pavilion, Cho Hyori, who presents a way of expanding the spatiality of painting into the results of other forms outside the canvas by crossing the ambiguous boundaries between painting and three-dimensional, Rhee Donghoon, who uses the characteristics of wood to sculpt and color the form, and then paints on the canvas based on this work, and Lee Hyunwoo, who presents a sculptural work that dispels the conventional standards and values attached to the object and reunites them to create works that show the horizon in which the materials that form the sculpture return to the matter itself, will present their work in the exhibition.

In this exhibition, you will be able to focus on the medium of painting and installation sculpture and see the results of dynamic work that goes beyond the limits of the medium the artists are devoted to.

Cho Hyori presents works that make the spatial nature of the painting stand out by recognizing the flat canvas as a three-dimensional space and working in a way that expands the space.

In this exhibition, the artist showcases the works that express the changes in spatial imagery caused by the movement of perspective and the works that are expanded using Donald Judd's single-stack series that find connectivity in the concept of specific objects and the aesthetics of the reflective properties of metals.

"When the illusionary depth of the painting replaces imaginary spatiality, I find myself standing in front of a  painting with a brush. My gaze floats to the front, the side, a point far from me, a point closer to me, inside of myself, back of myself, outside myself, then again, to a deeper place. The compressed screen is flat, but you can definitely tell its front and back. From the end of the screen, the paint creates a welcoming space behind it or sneaks forward and reveals its physical properties. Thus, the screen is transparent and opaque at the same time."

- From the artist's notes

Rhee Donghoon paints sculptures through sculptures and paints them as a retrospective of the acts he practiced in sculptures. He uses wood as the material for his sculptures. Instead of expressing detailed contours and textures, he sculpts using chainsaws and chisels and colors the surface to match the actual object. He unfolds the process of rearranging and recreating the sculptures that are created through that process as colors from the perspective of the eyes and the camera. In this exhibition, you will have the opportunity to see why the artist's sculptures are like paintings and see sculptural paintings yourself.

"My sculptures started with the question of how I was going to draw. I still draw observing objects, but my works do not depict the light, shading, and form that I have observed. What I reproduce as drawings are the process of rearranging and replaying the result of the sculpture in color from the perspective of the eye and the camera. It is an act of recalling my attitude in the realm of sculpture into paintings."

- From the artist's notes

Lee Hyunwoo creates sculptures that remove the functions, meanings, and standards defined and named in objects. He makes images that solely depict the materiality of things with the results of observing things as they are, not being consumed by any situation or object, and paying attention to the materiality of the things. The conventional standards and values that make up the objects dissipate, and the objects that form the sculptures regress to their matters themselves. For the artist, sculpture is "the imaging of a substance that is not defined or named." You will be able to experience the primordial images of matters in the era where we are overflooded with images.

"The legitimacy of my work is focused on the act. In the process of dismantling an object, the performer goes against the standards assigned to it, such as its function, meaning, and aesthetics. And in the process of reuniting the object, the materials gathered to be the materials of the sculpture cease to exist only as a part of the body of the piece, with no element of meaning, function, or aesthetic at the forefront of value."

- From the artist's interview in 'Maps'