CHOE SOORYEON

Although Choi Soo-ryeon’s drawings feel familiar, like looking at handwritten notes from school days, they also contain indefinable, alien, and ambivalent elements. Reading the artist’s drawings and writings evokes a feeling of ”‘funnily scary.’ The repeated phrase “death, death” that appears throughout the drawings can be both humorous, like a lame joke, and disheartening and bitter, reminding us of life’s impermanence. The old Chinese texts coexist with both the solemnity and humour of ‘Gungsuh,’ as well as the dualistic attitude toward ‘Eastern’ culture.

Meanwhile, it seems that the artist Choi Soo-ryeon is grappling with questions about painting. From the series inspired by the English translation of his solo exhibition Pictures for Use and Pleasure held at Incheon Art Platform in 2020, to The Tao of Painting’ and the exhibition title Painting on the Canvas of Painting, the artist seems to be unable to express his serious conviction about what constitutes a ‘good painting.’ Perhaps the confession of his earnest heart can only be expressed through repetition of the homonym, Painting on the Canvas of Painting, just as the meaning of the Chinese characters for ‘painting’ (會畵) is repeated.