Sunday, March 1, 2009

Solo exhibition - Han Hyo seok - 'Zeitgeist' Gallery Artside, Insadong, Seoul - til Mar 9


This is a solo exhbition of paintings and installations by Hongik graduate and well-known Seoul artist, Han Hyo Seok. The artist has created portraits of people he knows based on photographs, and his style is to render his human subjects in the textures of animal meat as found in a butcher's shop. Love it or hate it, it's definitely hard to ignore.

Hongik English teacher, Sue Alexander from Scotland, was one of Han's foreign subjects, and you can see her at the left, standing in front of the large portrait painting.

Here's an explanation of Han's work:
What Han Hyo Seok shows in his grotesque human forms reveal something hidden inside. The message lies in the visual effects of threatening surface of existence which makes us feel the loss of human dignity, peace, and the meaning of existence by the irregularities of high civilization.
The images of his works, "combat for unproved authority" are to the portraits of ourselves. While present picture of us face the limitation of temperance in fast civilized society, we project human countenance trembling with fear and terror as ourselves.
Forgetting the human nature, derived immorality and negativity from hypocrisy and complications conceive destructed human essence.
The eyes in his works look like as if they exhort us to self-examine inner thoughts. Sad glitter of the eyes contain the dream of date of return of human dignity.

Through the psychological description of his works, Han Hyo Seok tries to correct organizational contradiction of individuals and the equilibrium of inequality in the meaning of both socially and politically.
Incorporating the frank pictures of the present age passing both light and shade of civilization show the attempt of making others to feel the reality in depth. That could be the suppression in the process of civilization or neglection behind the logic of development. Giving ear to the weak's pain, grief and sorrow rather than the interests of the strong.
This strong message disagrees with the fiction of distorted heroes and seeks to draw near to the truth of restoration of dignified life and human equality.
- ARTSIDE 2009


170 Gwanhoondong, Jongnogu, Seoul, Korea, 110-300
Tel.822-725-1020
Fax.822-725-1553
Open and Close Hour : 10:00 ~ 18:30 (closed on Sunday)
Website: (Korean and English)www.artside.org

No comments: