Repeat after Yellow - 2016 Fall
Ordinary scenes of everyday life present themselves, charged with the flow of time. They detect the temperature, weather, light, color, and emotions of such differences, measured in units of hours, days, even years. To portray such variations, my everyday observation has already taken many years of my life.
The space of spring in this exhibition expresses the duality of unsustainable beauty. Just as life itself, the brilliance of flower captures the momentariness of its blossom. The banal moments of the present which one believes will unfold into tomorrow can no longer be made possible due to instances of the moment.
Remembering the beautiful Forsythia that fell miserably with the spring rain and hoping for the next year, I heartlessly immerse myself into the cruelty of daily life, perpetuating the repetition of everyday through a new life.
특별할 것 없는 주변의 일상적 풍경은 시간의 흐름을 느끼며 자신을 드러내고 있다. 일년, 하루, 몇시간, 혹은 순간의 단위 속의 온도, 날씨, 빛, 색, 그에 따른 감정의 변화 등등... 이러한 것들을 알아차리기 위해 하루하루의 일상적 관찰은 어느새 여러해의 시간을 소비하
게 만들었다.
이번 전시에서 주로 보여지는 봄의 공간은 지속될 수 없는 아름다움의 이중성을 표현하고자 했다. 살아간다는 것이 그러하듯 꽃의 화려함 속에는 오늘내일-곧 져버릴 순간성을 안고 있는 것이다. 내일도 당연히 있을 줄 알았던 오늘의 그저그런 하루가 순간의 사건으로 더이상은 만날 수 없게 되었다.
이렇게 비바람의 칼날 속에 처참히 떨어져버린 아름답던-허무한 개나리를 기억하며 다음해를 기약하듯이, 야속하게도 다른 새로운 삶을 통해 하루하루의 반복을 다시 시작하며, 잔인한 일상에 젖어 든다.
Eoryoung Choi
On the Other Side of Everyday Life - May 25, 2015
It was 5:38 p.m. on September 27th 2014 when
Choi Eo-ryoung took photographs of a street with a line of cars parked in front
of the Eunpyeong-gu Seobu Police Station. The leaves on the trees lining up the
street are still green, perhaps because the summer was particularly hot that
year, and the old police building seems to show a cross section of the degenerating city. The banner written ‘Eunpyeong
Nuri Festival’ hang on the outer wall of the building, symbolizing the banality
of everyday life in a local community. The different cars parked on the street
— KIA Morning, Hyundai Sonata, Renault Samsung SM5 — capture the lives and
traces of people residing in Eunpyeong-gu, resembling the ordinary lives of the
people they transport like pets resembling their owners.
Taken just a few days later, on October 2nd
2014 at 3:58 p.m., the picture of the police station building corner shows the leaves that have
already turned yellow and cars of other different owners are stationed in
parking spots.
Then in the photograph taken at 5:26 p.m. on February 11th
2015, we see skinny and bare tree branches — having resolutely endured the
winter — and tightly parked cars lined up in the street.
Choi’s artistic process involves taking photographs of
everyday landscape, bringing the photographs into her studio and transferring
them onto canvas using acrylic. Upon closer look, however, what the artist
engages with in this process of documenting the everyday life reflected in the
artist’s eyes and transferring the digitized image onto the canvas, is a
dimension that lies beyond the realm of the so-called ‘everyday’. One commonly
defines the ‘everyday’ as something that is repetitive, familiar, common and
banal to the point of being devoid of stimulation. The everyday that we see
from an ordinary perspective might seem to match the ordinary definition of the
everyday; however, the true nature of everyday lying beneath what is apparent
makes us become aware of ourselves in a completely different context.
The true nature of everyday life that lies beyond what we
see is demonstrated in the paintings that portray the police station at three
different points in time. The first aspect is that everyday life in its
completeness cannot be realized in a moment. Everyday life is realized within
the range that is captured by the eye, and only when one tries to expand such
range can he or she begin to sense a more extended realm of the everyday.
Secondly, everyday life cannot be captured the way it is. In the process of
documenting, the artist comes to edit the cross section of daily life through
the viewfinder of his camera. No matter how honest and frank everyday unfolds itself
before us, it cannot be captured the way it is because of the artist’s
aesthetic tendency that makes him select the image that he sees. Through his
aesthetic discrimination, the artist almost involuntarily selects his
composition, interprets the mood, and finds the meaning which satisfies his
vision.
Third, everyday life is like fresh cream cake. It may look
like fresh cream applied on cake, but the cross section of the cake shows
chocolate, fruits, cream and cake layered and stacked like geological layers. In
other words, everyday is never dull and boring, but is filled with perpetual
happenings of individual events.
The child standing in a basketball court in Geomam-dong,
Incheon, at 3:45 p.m. on October 22nd, 2013 is all alone. His
parents might be standing outside of this photograph of a seemingly banal
sight, but this child dressed in red pants and white shirt is suddenly left
neglected in public space where danger might lurk. Hidden in shadows of everyday,
the potential danger quietly evokes a sense of anxiety.
A park in Geomam-dong is empty at 3;45 p.m., September
29th, 2013, and paintings of public spaces at similar points in time are also
devoid of people. Barely ornamented without visitors, the spaces pretend to be
quiet everyday scenes. On the other hand, however, the spaces seem to be waiting
for something lying dormant to blow up. In the painting of Ara Waterway at 4:26
p.m. on February 9th 2014, it seems as though a local person would dash
out of his house, shouting that something critical has happened all of a
sudden. And the line of dark half-submerged drains evoke an image of a corpse
floating on the water.
The fourth truth about everyday life, as demonstrated in
Choi’s work, is that the everyday is completely unique. A house in Eunpyeong-gu
stands with a window lit at 7:59 p.m., May 25th, 2014. It’s evening, and while
all the lights inside the house have been turned off, one window remains lit. The
simple composition of black and blue captures our attention because of the unique
storytelling that lies beneath the extremely ordinary everyday sight, prompting
the viewer to ask totally ordinary but intimate questions like who lives in the
house, who remains awake, and why. While we all cross the crosswalk, go to work,
sleep at night and wake up in the morning, we all live different repetitions of
everyday life, which also constitutes of different days.
The everyday in Choi’s work is never everyday in ordinary
meaning. The everyday she portrays has a nature of potentiality, and is
something that may be experienced by all people or just some people. Choi
observes, communicates, documents and paints everyday with multidimensional
characteristics. And while she might become familiar with different everyday
life every time she moves, the unfamiliarity on the other side will continue to
fascinate the artist’s imagination.
Lee Gi-mo (Exhibition Director, Art Center White Block)
Artist Statement - April 5, 2010
I focus on mundane objects, household gadgets and wall fixtures that are anything but strange. I find that people cannot always consciously be aware of all of the objects and spaces that they interact with as part of their everyday life. I am interested in looking more carefully at that which is only acknowledged half-consciously. I linger in my work where we can’t linger in life because it would distract from our larger journeys.
The plain objects, such as walls, nails and lights, in my paintings are discovered through an intense examination of ordinary experience. My process of painting is analogous to my choice of subject matter. I spend time everyday meditating on the feel, look, touch, use, and energy of these objects as I depict them. Through this process the paintings come to embody, not only visual elements, but also many other sensory perceptions, including the passage of time. I try to investigate the objects as a form in a space. I do not consider the greater context – why they are located in a particular space or who put them there, and I do not intentionally reframe or exaggerate them. As I contemplate objects over time, I am better able to capture their energy. I often depict the objects life-sized and install the paintings with consideration for their position in an actual space. I will also describe the same object at different times of day or at the same time on different days. These paintings highlight the changes that would otherwise be imperceptible. This group of works also introduces the notion of complex time, through its installation in a space that operates in real time.
I have become attuned to these notions of space and objecthood since I moved to the United States two years ago. My attention to my new surroundings had to be heightened in order to pick up on new social and environmental cues. My isolation because of language barriers and cultural differences has made me more contemplative and attuned to the quiet aspects of life. Also, I tend to view my practice as an adoption processes, parallel to my own in this new country. If my move from Korea to Baltimore was a seismic shift in my daily routine, then each trivial change in perspective is a small tremor, an opportunity to see more by looking at less.
Artist
Statement - 2009 spring
The objects in
my art - windows, toys, and even sleeping positions - originate in my
daily life. Most of my works are oil paintings depicting ordinary
objects that have different appearances, but each piece has a
relationship to the others. I observe the relationship and similarities
between my mundane daily objects and me because I share space with these
objects. The observations create infinite space, quiet isolation and
repetition in my paintings.
My sleeping positions are not “lived objects” since there is no
consciousness, but the actual objects, like the windows and toys, gain a
certain existence through my paintings.
People often take existence for granted unconsciously because they live
in daily, weekly, and yearly repetition. Unless they have the luxury of
time to acknowledge their existence, they cannot be aware of it.
My works are personal. They are connected with my actual narrative,
personality, emotions, and life at specific moments. I’m projecting
myself into inanimate objects and thus I become the objects.
