K.O.N.G Gallery offers optimism with its ‘post Covid-19’ exhibition

Artist Tae Kim poses together with her portray ″Black Cow,″ which is a part of the ″On-Tact″ exhibition at Ok.O.N.G Gallery in central Seoul. [MOON SO-YOUNG]

 
Ok.O.N.G Gallery in central Seoul just lately began a present of two millennial artists titled “On-Tact” as a part of its “publish Covid-19” exhibition sequence.  
 
‘Ontact,’ in addition to ‘untact’ are newly-coined phrases which were continuously utilized by the Korean media because the outbreak of the pandemic. ‘Ontact,’ a mix of the phrases ‘on-line’ and ‘contact,’ means on-line contact, whereas ‘untact’ means contact-free. Paradoxically, the present options probably the most conventional style of artwork that requires offline, guide labor — work.
 
Among the many two taking part artists, Tae Kim, 35, presents large-scale work in her “Black Cow” sequence, every of which depicts a human whose physique is partly reworked, dismantled or fused with the digital world of the Web. “Black cow” is a translation of heuk-u, Korean slang that refers to a pushover, specifically, those that squander cash on on-line sport gadgets or cryptocurrencies.
 
“This isn’t a sure particular person however modern people together with myself,” stated the artist, who’s a digital native and massive fan of the League of Legends sport. “We, immersed within the digital house, neglect our bodily, bodily existence in actuality. On the identical time, we expose our intimate, non-public life within the digital house, which I really feel like is exposing our inside organs. My work are about these concepts.”
 
Kim creates her work with conventional East Asian pigment and methods. She obtained a bachelor’s and grasp’s diploma in East Asian portray at Seoul Nationwide College. “Respiratory management is essential if you make brush strokes in East Asian work [as they are difficult to correct by painting over unlike Western oil paintings],” she stated. “So, portray, above all, makes me really feel and take into consideration my bodily existence and its relation with the digital world.”
 
She additionally presents her “Faceless Players” sequence, that are portraits of different gamers she interacts with whose faces she has by no means seen however imagines based mostly on on-line conversations they’ve. 
 

Artist Park Jin-hee poses along with his portray ″Marsh Backyard″ which is a part of the ″On-Tact″ present at Ok.O.N.G Gallery in central Seoul. [MOON SO-YOUNG]

 
The opposite artist taking part within the exhibition, Park Jin-hee, 37, presents large-scale oil work of stylish colours, which appear to be in between summary and figurative artwork. Really, they depict the vegetation and microorganisms of marshes.
 
“Though I used to be born and have lived in cities, I got here to take curiosity in marshes after I was learning in Britain,” Park stated. He obtained a grasp’s diploma in portray on the Royal Faculty of Artwork in London. “They’re locations stuffed with hazard and vitality on the identical time. I started to color in oil what was taking place amongst microorganisms in marshes — their dynamics and very important forces. Oil portray is in between stable and liquid and that attribute is just like that of marshes.”  
 
Park added it’s time to deal with nature, reminiscent of these present in marshes, amid the coronavirus pandemic, which he thinks is expounded to the over-development of capitalism and industries.
 
The exhibition runs by Feb. 21.
 
 
By MOON SO-YOUNG   [symoon@joongang.co.kr]