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Jiyon Hong 홍지연
2020.11.26 - 2020. 12.26 Gallery2
Why are there a pair of gloves dropped on a street, its owner unknown? The paradox and absurdity of this strange situation and its vestiges, the temporary situation, gap between language and reality, what I know perceived as real, and how it is not the truth. Jiyon Hong’s works are vessels of her emotion, humor, and doubts. They culminate into a question and answer of the self, reality, and the why of self-denial.
Jiyon Hong’s solo exhibition Refresh is a presentation of both flat and three-dimensional works. 'Eraser1', 'Eraser2', and 'Pencil' were first modeled in 3D, using 3D program, before putting each scene on to the canvas. 3D modeling is a means to transcend reality, to create scenes otherwise impossible with a real-life object. The picture features mundane objects such as erasers and pencils. The artist explains that the intention was to embody in the eraser as an object, the concepts of thing which erases and that which makes anew. 3D modeling programs and photo-editing software makes it very easy to erase images and to return edited images to their original state especially when we click the Refresh button. The eraser is a metaphor for making something anew in a virtual space. The pencil is there, because Hong originally wanted a pencil with a rubber tip, and because the two make a complimentary pair.
'Mistake and Fall' is an installation work that comes from an image of a stack of pencils and erasers. The work consists of a downward arrow, symbols for proofreading and revision, and the empty blankness one can see when an image is erased in 3D modeling programs or photoshop. Jiyon Hong used 3D modeling to add arrows for creating movements of action of stacked pencils and erasers collapse. The construction of objects in virtual space is in painting, and the precursor to falling-and-making-anew is in installation form. The symbols for proofreading and revision are not images but a making-anew of language.
'Horizon' is about 10-meters wide horizontally, a ruler that measures length. It comes from the artist’s experience of drawing with a ruler for accuracy, but again needing a leveler to ensure a horizontal line. To measure with a ruler is to make anew by confirming or verify. That is, to remove any inkling of doubt and suspicion.
The exhibition is summarized in the concept of make anew, via a process of construction, denial, fallout, verification and correction. Perfection is not her aim, and she explains that (perfect) change is not possible. She prefers to avoid discussions of overcoming the present situation or suggest solutions. Rather, she presents a repeating process. Her paintings, drawings, and installations tell different stories, more specifically, fragmented stages of construction, denial, fallout, validation and correction. It goes without saying that the works are important individually, but it is also worth noting the changing circumstances between each work.
Jiyon Hong says she wanted to create a situation where symbols were intertwined. This refers to both the form of symbols and the entanglement of meaning. The artwork is ambiguous about what it may convey, and the unmistakable arrow feels like it symbolizes something, but Hong hopes that it points to nothing particular at all. She wants to avoid any immediate assignment of meaning, because “that would be too easy.” The moment we try to assign meaning to a person, place or thing, we might be alienating ourselves, by assuming that we have comprehended and packed everything about the subject into that meaning. Vigilance against such haste and oversimplification of the subject, the language, the symbol, the image, and some narratives may thrive in the native layers that they are meant to be in.
