Page 9 - 장혁동 개인전 2023. 9. 12 – 10. 29 쇼움갤러리

Artist Note Jang Hyuk-Dong

In the act and process of creating a piece of work, the question of how directly the culture, environment, and

values in which the artist resides affects the creation of the work will be an important basis not only for
understanding the work but also for looking into its inner side.
After moving to Germany in 2000 at the age of about 30 years old, I had to adapt to a new environment, and

faced changes and conflicts in my inner world because of conflicts of different values and cultures. This difficulty
was unintentional in a way, but in the end, it would have led me to positive growth that broadened the range of
my eyes to see the world. My paintings were full of worries about where we are now, who we are facing each
other, and where we are heading towards.

As time passed, the main characters in my paintings have been agonizing with me about the diversity of values
and what is wrong and what is true and what is false. They are me, you and us.

When faced with the question of what is the repeated daily life of modern people for and who am I, I always end
up feeling empty. However, the emptiness I perceived and the despair in the underlying darkness must be in order
to ultimately get to hope. I wanted to suggest where the psychological tension arising from these philosophical
questions, hidden desires and uneasy daily life, a sense of alienation as a stranger, longing for loved ones, and
loneliness in the crowd would eventually lead to a process.

My paintings capture both individuality and universality at the same time by placing the self-portrait of an
unspecified and lonely modern person on the screen and blurring the background. While presenting ordinary and
familiar scenes of everyday life, I intended to identify them with the viewer who makes them feel unfamiliar, and
think again, induce immersion, and open up the possibility of poetic interpretation.

Strong colors and touches or lines that are selectively added are intended to be melted together on the canvas
as an emphasis of a kind of mental and psychological reflection.

As for the method of expression, it is based on the tradition of figurative painting, but added the spirituality of
abstract painting to create a new dreamy space to balance the existential anxiety and psychological tranquility of
modern people. In some works, I tried to highligt the beauty of vivid drawing by stopping the work in the middle.
In addition, the emotional pictorial language hidden in intentionally moderated colors, low saturation and
matteness throughout the screen contemplates lonely objects.

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