EXHIBITION

Night Ride

GALLERY SOSO, Kyonggi-do, Paju, 11/07/2015 - 12/06/2015

1652-569, Heyri ArtValley, Beopheung-ri, Tanhyeon-myeon, Paju-si, Gyeonggi-do

ABOUT

Dongwook SUH says he has painted the night himself - portraits of youths seemingly as risky as wild animals trapped inside glittering lights in a city, dazzling starlights in the night sky and headlights of cars. He needed lighting to represent all these images, and in other words, had the night or a dark indoor setting as the background as a pre-determined condition. The biggest twist shown through this exhibition lies in the usage of light. He excluded the artificial lighting for the first time, using the sunlight only to describe objects, which are human beings. His 『Night ride』 means 'moving around at night.' Given that all scenes described in his new work were expressed as light that penetrated inside, the title of the exhibition is paradoxical because the background setting in the painting is the daytime without any exceptions.

SUH painted portraits of youths living in a city. They seem to frown their eyes due to the shiny sunlight in the morning, and reflect on the night before with mixed reactions on their face. They are also dubbed as 'night riders.' He reflects and projects himself through their untamed facets, and the very projection is to spread to the audience soon. It is because no matter who the people are in the portraits, the starting point is their internal self-portraits, and the absence of subject matters as such leaves a possibility for observers to take the space. Frustrated desire in the reality takes us to a night ride. Desire is an energy that can be borne only when something is lacking, and when that shortcoming is filled up, we fall into nihilism. The night is beautiful because it has dual features of romance and fear resulting from a lack of light. Frustrated desire and deficient reality are analogous to the nightscape. Only with the sunset and the coming of the night can we actually look into the glittering stars in the night sky. Wouldn't he express the night through the characters in his painting in this exhibition.

 ● SUH's paintings provide comparatively specific narratives like mise en scene in a well-plotted movie. Characters in his paintings have such sensitive and subtle emotions that they might be burnt into ashes like thin pieces of paper under the morning sunlight. He photographs actual people around him as models and represents them on his canvas, and as he shoots them, he would give them specific directions to the models as if they were in a movie scene and follow the emotional lines of the models. The emotional lines depicted by SUH seem to hit one's heart like a speedily flying arrow. The very moment is the punctum that can be painted by him only. I might ask a question, "Would it be possible to express sentiments of subtle moments into paintings?" I also have a doubt whether the subject matters are picturesque objects, which, in fact, does not matter. His paintings are like poems, and are penetrated into one's senses as these questions are asked. One might interpret his figure paintings as self-portraits of narcissistic mentality, which has been pinpointed by many critics and acknowledged by SUH. It is because the act of painting is his own way of fighting against the existential anxiety and proving his own existence and responding to the reality.

His paintings are still sensible and sentimental, but his internal expressions have seemingly become deeper. ● He also works with videos let along paintings. He used to tap onto videos as a supplementary means to expand the narrativity of his early paintings, but he uses them separately because he has agreed to the idea that one of the features of paintings is implicitness. He also described in the artist's note that paintings are the best means to showcase artists' artistic individuality among all media, and the artistic value of paintings are completed with the artists' creative and advanced skills. He also confessed on his passion for paintings in the prologue of the previous exhibition titled 『Art of Painting』. His answer to a question, "Why do you paint?" was "I have painted from the very beginning and have been good at it," which was a plain feedback. He also said he had a strong commitment as a painter. Paintings in the past were the icon to express images, but now they are just one medium to deal with images. His persistence to painting and declaration as a painter is a question and a journey to explore the features of paintings. In this exhibition, the legacy of such reasoning for the question is visible. He is continuing on with the experiment of paintings. Wouldn't his current artist path be fair to be called a night ride, too.

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