Artist reveals how previous and current coexist on a single floor by means of the meditative means of layering and sanding lacquer.
In conventional East Asian portray, when ink is utilized to hanji, Korean mulberry paper, it seeps into the fibers, turning into one with the paper itself.
Lacquer artist Kim Deok-han’s works embody an identical precept in his personal materials language. Even with a number of layers of lacquer, they don’t construct up, however coalesce right into a single, unified floor. The sense of unity is achieved by means of repeated sanding of the layers with sandpaper.
“You may contact it right here, if you need. I layered black, yellow, inexperienced, black once more and white. However these lacquer layers exist on the identical flat floor,” Kim, pointing to one among his works, informed The Korea Herald on Oct. 30 at Whitestone Gallery in Seoul.
“The previous isn’t beneath and the current isn’t above; previous and current coexist on a single floor. Isn’t that identical to who we’re at this time? We’re the buildup of previous feelings, experiences and recollections that collectively make up our current selves,” the artist mentioned.
Additionally known as “ottchil” in Korean, lacquer was historically used for ornamental strategies for the best lacquerware or mother-of-pearl inlay. Uncooked lacquer collected by means of notches minimize into lacquer bushes (Rhus) — that are grown solely in East Asia — has a naturally darkish tone.
Kim mixes shade pigments into uncooked lacquer to create his personal medium.
“Overlaid: Layered Time, Types of Reminiscence” is Han’s first solo exhibition in Korea in 5 years, following one on the Lee Ungno Museum the place he was chosen as a promising artist. A complete of 56 works have been introduced collectively throughout the three flooring of the gallery.
Kim applies about 9 layers of pure lacquer, adopted by 4 to 5 layers of coloured lacquer, over a wooden or an aluminum panel coated with linen. Then his actual work begins: he sands the floor repeatedly with sandpaper, the artist informed The Korea Herald.
The method often takes six to 12 months, as time and persistence is required to permit every coloured layer to dry fully earlier than one other is utilized, in response to the gallery.
“Typically, once I scrape the floor, it peels fantastically; different instances, it doesn’t,” he mentioned. “It depends upon so many components: the quantity of lacquer, the strain of my hand, and so forth. It’s not one thing I can management 100%. So this work is about letting likelihood turn out to be inevitability.”
Kim presents his first monumental set up work “Division Sequence No.2025” on the exhibition, stretching 12 meters in size and 6 meters in peak, reworking the second-floor of the gallery into an immersive spatial expertise.
There are some works that he deliberately “wounded” for the exhibition. After ending the piece — repeatedly layering lacquer — at some point he pressed down exhausting with an “extraordinarily tough sandpaper that I ought to by no means have used,” Kim recalled.
“As I did, the underlying layers have been all of the sudden uncovered, uncooked and trustworthy, and I felt unusually relieved,” he mentioned. “I had been fastidiously sanding to glimpse what lay beneath, however at that second, I noticed I might specific all of it by means of a single prompt – it was like a second of ‘chalna.’”
The Korean phrase chalna stems from a Buddhist time period and represents the fleeting second wherein all phenomena come up and disappear, emphasizing the impermanence of every part that exists.
“Overlaid: Layered Time, Types of Reminiscence” at Whitestone Gallery in Seoul opened on Oct. 25 and runs by means of Dec. 7.
