Project K :: exhibitions

Artist Statement by Sung Sik Kim

A. In 2017, I drew a bird gazing outward. I was drawn to the image, though I could not explain why. For a long time, birds have entered the realm of human imagination—serving as mediators between earth and sky, as with the sotdae, or transforming into concrete disasters, as in Hitchcock’s films. They have been read as omens of fortune or misfortune, and imagined as symbols of greed, like the eagle looming behind a cowering child. We give skilled snipers the name “Hawkeye,” and in modern sports the device that captures the precise position of a ball is also called Hawk-Eye. Yet, despite these many associations, I still cannot tell why I was compelled by that bird.

B. I still do not know why I was drawn to the image of the bird. Yet after working on the bird triptych series in 2019, I began to reflect on the contexts created when images interact within space. My thoughts on the relationship between the bird and the painting eventually extended into the form of the curve. When I imagined the image of a snake moving along the edges and corners of objects, the impulse toward the curve grew even stronger. The exhibition thus unfolds with walls and corners, curves and straight lines, birds and snakes.

Artist Statement by Saito Yuna

Ceramics are made by mixing water with earth to create clay, shaping it, and then removing moisture through drying and firing. This process feels similar to how rain falls on the ground, how soil holds the water, and how the earth, mixed with water, flows into rivers or seas, leaving behind traces of water even after it dries. Even the finished ceramic pieces themselves have the ability to absorb water. When water is poured into unglazed ceramics, it is slowly absorbed and seeps through. My work visualizes these traces of water and the absorptive quality of ceramics.

Until now, I’ve worked on projects that involve filling ceramics with water over the course of several days, allowing the water to gradually penetrate the piece. This idea may have come from the fact that ceramic objects are often made in forms meant to contain water, like bowls or cups. Also, when wet clay is shaped into a flat slab, the edges dry faster than the center, causing the ends to curl upward. Through this movement of water during the drying process, the flat slab gently transforms into a concave form. Convex shapes or completely flat surfaces are not ideal for holding food or drinks.

There may be many reasons for this, but watching a clay slab slowly curve inward makes me wonder if the act of placing food on tableware is somehow connected to the nature of clay itself. This line of thought has led me to develop an interest in the vessel as a container for holding water. For this exhibition, I am presenting a new work titled Vessel.

L'Ecaille Naviguant sur l’eau

In his book ‘The Poetics of Space’, Gaston Bachelard uncovers an interesting image, Hieronymus Bosch's L'Ecaille Naviguant sur l'eau, in which people are having a chaotic banquet inside a clam shell on the surface of a surging sea. Is there an image that more aptly captures the essence of beings with fragile bodies navigating the vicissitudes of the world? The claustrophobic confines of the clamshell juxtaposed against the vast expanse of the sea symbolises the universal human experience of navigating our external world, despite our own physical fragility.

In a manner similar to Bosch, Kim Ka-yun and Bang Ye-eun explore the concept of ‘the body sailing with a shell, starting their artistic endeavours with their very own physiques. The artists explore the narrative of the space captured by their bodies over time, leaving visible traces of this process. However, these traces are not merely by-products of past movement; rather, they serve as indicators of the truth hidden beneath the layers of the space, akin to fossils underneath the strata. Space, as perceived in our consciousness, is layered one on top of the other, much like a skin or shell.

Centrifugal Force: Forming the Shell of the Body

The artistic oeuvre of Kim Ka-yun evokes the process by which mollusks tenaciously form a hard shell over their soft bodies. As a practitioner of pottery, she is acutely aware that the dimensions of the kiln invariably determine the maximum size of her work. Consequently, the movements she creates are perpetually confined within the invisible kiln. She commences her artistic endeavours in a crouched posture within a confined virtual space, striving to infuse her work with a maximum degree of movement. The traces of this struggle persist throughout the artistic process, manifesting as footprints on the work surface, the afterimage of arms oscillating back and forth, and even hands resembling tentacles extending outwards. Kim Ka-yun's artistic process entails the creation of the most intense movements within the confines of the available space. The clay, akin to the body fluids of mollusks, is gradually secreted and accumulated in accordance with the artist's movements, subsequently hardening through natural processes. The shell, crafted by her gestural movements, is then placed in a confined kiln and fired, thereby undergoing a process of rebirth as a unified entity. Once the gesture has been embodied, the exterior, adorned with a spectrum of colours, serves as a canvas for the representation of time and space, evoking the image of a spiral conch shell cast upon a beach, dispersing light. However, the interior of the shell remains unoccupied. As observers approach the hollow interior, they detect the faint echo of the sea. The traces on the shell and its sound serve as a reminder of the body of Kim Ka-yun that once existed within. Just as crustaceans experience their bodies most intensely just before they shed their shells, Kim Ka-yun's body feels itself most acutely at the moment when it is trapped in clay and longs to be reborn.

Centripetal Force: Cutting out the skin of the city.

Bang Ye-eun, by contrast, traverses the vastness of the city with her steps in a seemingly endless drift, whereas Kim Ka-yun explores the narrowness of the body, creating a rigid shell of movement. The 21st-century metropolis, characterised by the dominance of a transnational data-driven economy, is replete with soft inner skin layers. The contemporary metropolis is characterised by the prevalence of data exchange, with the urban landscape becoming increasingly saturated with information. This phenomenon carries profound implications for our experience of the city, as our perception is influenced by the network to which we are connected. The urban space, once defined by physical features, is now inundated with digital markers, such as “Google Map pins” and “Instagram likes”. This transformation has resulted in a more intricate and interconnected urban environment, yet it has also engendered a sense of alienation, akin to traversing an expansive ocean. This is the urban landscape of the 21st century. Bang Ye-eun navigates this vastness in solitude, seeking to regain a sense of spatial orientation that has been lost. As she traverses, she encounters various elements of the city, including buildings obstructing her path, pavements guiding her steps, fading shadows, fragrant flowers and trees that lean over the wind. In response, she seizes translucent fragments of the city's skin, delicately severing it from the corner she is standing on. By trespassing the innermost of the city with her steps, she captures moments of encounter that have already faded. The captured moments, now suspended in a state of transience, are meticulously arranged, creating a unique and immersive experience. It is your body, now navigating the gallery, that scatters the layers of the space, thereby transforming it into a dynamic and multifaceted domain.

Written by Eugene