ONE AND J. Gallery is pleased to announce Touch, a solo exhibition from 22 September to 25 October by Seung Yul Oh, who is based in New Zealand. Born in Seoul, the artist studied fine arts at the University of Auckland, and is currently living in New Zealand. In Korea, Oh gained domestic attention with solo show Solo Group Show (2011) at ggooll (currently Amado Art Space/Lab). Since then, he has held several solo and group shows, traveling between New Zealand and Korea.
Since the beginning of his career, his consistent interest is to regain an extended sensation beyond fixed recognitions. His works are often read as 'humor,' because the artist uses 'laughter' and 'joke' as a device to instantly break down the frame of concrete perceptions. 'Humor' is also a 'distancing' device that keeps you from being overwhelmed from infinite senses you experience at moments of rupture. Rather than being helpless in faces of the vastness of phenomena, his attitude of gazing and keeping them along with life can also be applied to the attitude of accepting situations of the pandemic we are experiencing. Oh focuses on sensing all these phenomena, to create flooding moments through his works. He produces cycles, which are once again experienced and observed by audiences.
This exhibition Touch presents a large-scale installation of an enlarged molecular structure for more than three meters and two pieces of Pou Sto, mouse-shape sculptures that have been produced in a series since before. The installation, which seems to have been built with a huge enlargement of an invisible molecular structure, provides an opportunity for audiences to sense the invisible with an experience to walk among the structure. Meanwhile, 'Pou Sto' is derived from an ancient Greek word, meaning 'foothold' or 'foundation.' It can also be found from a famous aphorism of a Greek physicist Archimedes, 'Dos moi pou sto kai Kino ten gen (Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth).' It also has a hidden meaning of 'a basis of operation' or 'cause'. Oh emphasizes not only the 'foothold' on which the tiny mouse stands, but also an art and the artist's imagination with well-prepared circumstances and cause, which he suggests perhaps having enough energy to make a huge difference.
This exhibition, unable to be installed by the artist due to COVID-19, is created by the energy of communication and imagination through various channels under the constraints of distance and time between New Zealand and Korea. This condition has been a chance for Oh to free his imagination and sensation. The exhibition will be presented as an incomprehensible expansion from unknown.
Press release courtesy ONE AND J. Gallery.
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South Korea
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