This year, the nonprofit art space Perigee Gallery launched “Perigee Unfold,” an exhibition program for young artists under the age of thirty-five whose artistic practices have been actively evolving.

From August 5 to August 27, 2022, the program’s first exhibition inter-face, curated by Kim Myung Jin, will feature the works of three artists: Youngho Jeong, Hur Yeonhwa, and Khia Hong.

An interface is a device that connects two different systems or subjects. For an artist, selecting a material or medium is similar to choosing an interface as the artist understands and acquires their artistic world and utilizes it as a means of expression through the medium. In other words, inter-face is a broad artistic interpretation of revealing the existence and environment of medium.

“This interface is a comprehensive term for a device and a framework that mediates between us and the real, allowing us to sense and express the world. If we limit this to the realm of art, it will become a medium of art,” said Curator Kim Myung Jin. “In addition to this, this exhibition will also deal with the story of today’s media environment, which is the basis and condition for us to sense the world around us.”

Khia Hong (b. 1994) has been exploring the sculpture genre with a more traditional understanding. The artist studies its mass and volume, especially through materials, such as plaster, that can be closely related to the artist’s body. Compared to other genres, the sculpture genre was shunned in the art world due to its weight and large volume. In the era of digitalization, flat mediums or virtuality-based works take center stage, while sculpture is frequently viewed as inefficient and unproductive. This has transformed many contemporary sculptures to have adopted lighter materials or become more suitable for posting on social media. Hong rather sees this inefficient characteristic of sculpture as a potential and seeks to recognize the unexplored possibilities of the genre through more traditional media.

Artist Khia Hong has exhibited works at many Korean art institutions, including solo exhibitions at Rainbow Cube (2022) and Boan 1942 (2021), as well as group exhibitions at WESS (2022) and Seoul Artists’ Platform_New&Young, SAPY (2022).

Youngho Jeong (b. 1989) is a photographer who observes the evolution of the media environment with the passage of time and the perception of data. Recently, the artist captured the changes caused by the internet. In anonymous online social spaces, people frequently engage in online debates accompanied by conflictive behavior. The artist collects data by filtering out a few keywords from these debates; creates patterns from these data; builds a graphic model; uses a 3D printer to make a prototype; and then photographs the final result. To further emphasize a media environment, the artist exposes the RGB pixels or the texture of 3D-printed objects in photographs.

Artist Youngho Jeong has exhibited works at Korean art institutions, including solo exhibitions at the Sahngup Gallery (2022) and the SongEun Art Cube (2021), as well as group exhibitions at the Sungkok Art Museum (2022) and the White Noise (2022).

Hur Yeonhwa (b. 1988) attempts to compress everyday landscapes and large spaces in her works and creates an organic connection between the pieces through various media. The works are based on sculpture but also encompass flat works, including prints and paintings in folded and rolled shapes. The artist also utilizes the settings of the 3D modeling program 3D MAX, which has no space limitations and applies them to her work settings. Water is another subject that Hur frequently touches on due to its transparent and borderless properties, which symbolize the connection. The artist realizes an infinite space or concept with finite mediums and moves back and forth between two and three dimensions, data, and matter.

Artist Hur Yeonhwa has exhibited works at major domestic art institutions, including solo exhibitions at Gallery Minjung (2022) and Post Territory Ujeongguk (2021), as well as group exhibitions at d/p (2022) and Insa Art Space (2021).

*Perigee Gallery is a nonprofit art space run by KHVATEC, a South Korean manufacturer of electronic components, where the general public can learn about and appreciate contemporary as well as visual art through its exhibitions, education programs, and other projects.

References

• 페리지 갤러리, PERIGEE UNFOLD 2022 inter-face