Sanghoon Ahn, When is spring coming, 2023-2024, Acrylic, oil on linen, 162.2x120cm ©Sanghoon Ahn
Gallery Chosun presents Sanghoon Ahn’s solo
exhibition, 《HANDS
AND STAINS》,
until April 27. This exhibition captures the artist’s ongoing exploration of
the uncertainty of time and existence, as well as the painterly experiments
derived from it, as he reaches the age of fifty.
Ahn’s paintings reveal and erase
repeatedly. Starting with images doomed to disappear from photographs, they
undergo numerous painterly decisions and transform into abstract canvases,
their traces solidifying on the surface. In this process, the concepts of
"hands" and "stains" operate as underlying elements in his
work. Hands leave their mark through every stage, while stains accept these
marks, existing in their imperfect state.
Stains often reveal truths just before they
vanish, momentarily residing in tranquility within the canvas. They navigate
between disappearance and persistence, continuously transforming and being
reborn. The work begins in these moments of disappearance.
Sanghoon Ahn, Buddha, 2024, Oil on linen,
162.2x130.3cm ©Sanghoon AhnPhotos discarded in the iPhone's trash bin,
destined to be blurrily erased like fragments of memory, are summoned onto the
canvas through techniques like watercolor, acrylic, and spray paint to form the
initial layer. Figuratively formed images are again transformed and destroyed
through thick layers of paint and finger painting, a process not of mere
deconstruction but of finding the seeds of new order amidst chaos.
The artist's method is closely linked to
his approach to painting, appearing as a resistance to traditional meanings of
painting. He does not see painting merely as a tool for representation, so in
his works, traces of reference or appropriation are either removed or left
dysfunctional.
Sanghoon Ahn, a family gathering, 2025, Oil
on linen, 162.2x130.3cm ©Sanghoon AhnThis attitude explores another possibility
of painting. Unlike the common trend in contemporary painting to assign
meaning, he seeks to reveal the intrinsic potential of painting itself by
removing representation and networks of meaning.
He constantly changes, exploring new
possibilities of painting amidst disorder and sometimes wavering in the face of
encountered uncertainties. For him, uncertainty is not a threat but an
opportunity for new possibilities and experimentation, repeating the potential
for failure within an unfinished and unstable state, constantly questioning his
own paintings.
Ji Yeon Lee has been working as an editor for the media art and culture channel AliceOn since 2021 and worked as an exhibition coordinator at samuso (now Space for Contemporary Art) from 2021 to 2023.
