Installation view of 《Metallic Wings》 © Hakgojae Gallery
Hakgojae Gallery presents a solo exhibition
《Metallic Wings》 by artist Keun
Wook JI, on view through May 9.
Keun Wook JI has long explored the
fundamental nature of painting. This exhibition transcends the representational
dimension of "what to show" through the acts of drawing lines and
layering materials; instead, it focuses on the fundamental mode of
existence—"how to reveal."
Layers accumulate on the canvas, and from
those layers, fine undulations ripple outward into the surrounding space. What
appears still is ceaselessly in motion. What appears solid swells,
imperceptibly, into a state of weightless immateriality. This temporal flux
anchors itself in the core material of this exhibition: metal.
Installation view of 《Metallic Wings》 © Hakgojae Gallery
Yet, metal here is no mere cold, inert
substrate. It is an emblem of non-linearity, forged by aeons of pressure and
metamorphosis, holding both the ancient past and future time. The stratified
material traces on the canvas respond to light, drawing deep echoes from the
picture plane.
The immediate reflections cast by the
metallic surface form a counterpoint to the intimately sedimented strata of
time beneath them, and this tension between the instantaneous and the ancient
transforms the flat plane into a space of structural depth. Weight loses its
anchor, and the rigid surface gives way to an open, boundless field of thought.
Installation view of 《Metallic Wings》 © Hakgojae Gallery
When this condensed matter is pushed to a
transcendent state through rhythmic repetition, the wing finally takes shape.
This wing is no decorative symbol of defiance against gravity; rather, it is
the shape of matter exceeding its own conditions. The texture of metal grows
lighter, and a threshold opens to a sense beyond the visible surface.
Within this space, times of unknown origin
converge and coexist. It is the beating of wings in flight toward the essence
of spirit.
In Keun Wook JI’s exhibition 《Metallic Wings》, physical practice,
substrate matter, and formless time intersect on a single surface. His
paintings are not a mechanical raster, sweeping to fill a surface. They are a
crucible testing other possibilities. In the space between, his traces depart
from their own boundaries. Forged in metal yet bound for the sky, they take
flight toward a direction not yet defined.
