[Exhibition of the Week] Wang Xueye Solo Exhibition 'Beyond Perception' · Austin Lee 'Passing Time' and More

▲ Austin Lee Solo Exhibition 'PASSING TIME' = "Austin Lee possesses a certain mystique. Just like how he was a boxer before becoming an artist." (Takashi Murakami)

Mr. Austin. 2019. ? Austin Lee
[Photo by Lotte Museum]

Lotte Museum is hosting Austin Lee's first solo exhibition in Korea, 'PASSING TIME.' Austin Lee is an artist gaining attention in the art world for pioneering a new genre of visual art that combines traditional painting with digital technology. This exhibition is designed as a 'time travel' experience for people to reflect on the complex emotions experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic era. Over 50 works including paintings, sculptures, and videos centered on emotions changing over the flow of time will be presented.

The artist works across digital and analog mediums. His creative process begins with conceptualizing images using digital drawing. He then either airbrushes these digital images onto canvas or uses 3D printing to shape them into sculptures. The works, which appear as if digital images have been directly transferred into reality, contain subtle and complex emotions such as joy, sadness, love, and anxiety. The artist explores human nature that is difficult to define easily, encouraging mutual understanding and empathy among viewers.

Joy. 2023, Acrylic on canvas. ? Austin Lee
Photo by Lotte Museum

'PASSING TIME' is themed around the keyword ‘time,’ reflecting on the complex emotions we experienced during the pandemic era. The exhibition begins by depicting the inner turmoil of humans caught in a time where everything stopped due to social isolation. Repeatedly played media and music amplify the chaos felt on the boundary between life and death. The corridors branching out in multiple directions symbolize giant clock hands. In a space where beginnings and ends intersect ambiguously, works themed on various emotions intermingle, illustrating the continuity of life.

Through his works, the artist deeply reflects on his inner self, then guides viewers to understand others and share experiences of loss, fostering connection. Visitors will experience a time travel journey to confront their own emotions and find emotional milestones. The exhibition runs until December 31 at Lotte Museum, Olympic-ro, Songpa-gu, Seoul.

Construction Nude. 즉(170) A Space-Time Nude Identical. [Photo by Hakgojae]

▲ Wang Shuye (王舒野) Solo Exhibition 'Beyond Perception' = Hakgojae is presenting Wang Shuye's solo exhibition 'Beyond Perception.' Wang Shuye is from Heilongjiang Province, China, and graduated from the China Academy of Arts and Crafts (now Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts) in 1989. After settling in Japan in 1990, he is now internationally active and recognized.

In ancient Chinese aesthetics, there is a concept called Muhyeon (無絃), meaning a guqin (a traditional stringed instrument) without strings. This term implies the impossibility of expressing the ideal music residing in the mind. Tao Yuanming (陶淵明) played the stringless guqin not with his hands but with his mind, savoring joy mentally. In Chinese painting aesthetics, there is also the concept of Mugahui (無可繪), meaning a realm that cannot be painted. No matter how precisely one paints, it belongs only to naturalism, and no matter how much poetic sentiment is infused, the artistic conception (意境) does not easily arise. From this idea, Xunzi (荀子) said, "A gentleman knows that without completeness and purity, it cannot be called beauty (君子知夫不全不粹之不足以爲美也)." Representing the unpaintable realm has been an eternal challenge in Chinese painting aesthetics.

Modern Chinese painting has developed divided between realism and expressionism. Contemporary Chinese painting has also embraced formalist aesthetics, continuously pursuing significant form. However, Wang Shuye continues to challenge Mugahui painting without belonging to any specific category.

The artist's works are neither realism nor expressionism. They are philosophical paintings that carefully observe objects (existence and relationships) based on fundamental and philosophical premises and represent them through painting. Sometimes, his artistic world can be described as expressive illusionism. Yet, it goes beyond that. The artist starts from fundamental philosophical premises. All our senses?seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and knowing?called the five aggregates (五蘊, form, sensation, perception, mental formations, consciousness), are inherent cognitive abilities. However, our abilities are not perfect but human representational capacities.

Wang Xueye, A Space-Time Nude Identical at Hakgojae. [Photo by Hakgojae]

He paints the essence of things. That is, he attempts to depict through thought the point where the essence of things resides beyond human capability. The artist explains this as "immediacy to things" (?). Almost all his works bear the title 'Spatiotemporal Nude · Immediacy' (時空裸體·卽), expressing his will to reveal the essence of space and time through painting. This has been a long-term project pursuing Mugahui painting in contemporary painting language. Through his recent works, he presents an original direction for Chinese contemporary painting, which has struggled to find new paths since the cynical realism paintings of the 1950s, by pursuing philosophical, reflective, and painterly depth. The exhibition runs until the 28th at Hakgojae, Samcheong-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul.

Hong Ram's collection 'Forms of Comfort'.
Photo by the artist

▲ Hong Boram Solo Exhibition 'Existing ? Forms of Consolation' = Hong Boram's solo exhibition 'Existing ? Forms of Consolation' is held at Artlink. This exhibition was planned as part of the Arts Management Support Center's '2023 Preliminary Exclusive Artist Support' project.

The artist, inspired by nature, has been working on abstract themes since 2008. Based on emotional exchanges with nature, she completes a journey of seeking answers to questions about her own existence and relationships under the theme 'Existing.'

The exhibition consists of 20 works created over about two years by carving and refining natural forms that the artist had previously painted on flat surfaces such as paper and panels, transforming them into bas-relief forms that seem to rise from the wall, tangible and self-existent. The artist says that questions encountered in human relationships are embraced and, while wandering in nature, nature itself shows answers as an integrative process. The natural forms accumulated in her mind came to her as forms of consolation, and she created these works to share with herself and those around her who strive to live despite emotional and mental shocks.

Forms of Comfort 20230720.
Photo by the artist

The artist, who majored in Western painting, has always longed for natural, breathing materials. The works in this exhibition primarily use wood as the main material. While searching for a new working method, she received advice from a Korean painting artist with whom she lived as a fellow resident artist, and completed the works using glue and white pigment (hoban). The shapes of hills seen at dusk, the existence holding stories of many colors in the darkness, are vividly expressed in the black-hued works. For the artist, black is the clarity that reveals the very shape of existence. The twenty works, created through a repeated and slow process that enabled complete concentration over a long time, offer the audience a narrative of consolation, like islands floating on the sea or like us existing together in harmony. The exhibition runs until the 10th at Artlink, Samcheong-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul.