Flawed as They Should Be

Haneyl Choi creates sculptures that draw from the contours and forms of the body. His works are frequently created in series, each of which are thoughtfully interconnected. Curiously, his sculptures of distorted, deformed hands manage to avoid repulsion due to their eerily smooth industrial plastic composition, but the viewer's response would certainly be different if these disfigured hands were to belong to a real person. The human hand – arguably the most discernible part of the body after the face – can often be a medical signifier in determining the nature of an individual's physical disability or deformity.

Through these sculptures, Choi uses synthetic material to boldly depict bodies that do not align with today's 'normal' – indeed, flawed as they should be. This show highlights three standing sculptures of the male body rendered in its entirety. Made of FRP, a specialised type of fibre-reinforced plastic, these statues bear a resemblance to common mannequins, but with an unusual twist.

One sculpture, seemingly intended to caricatures masculinity, boasts abnormally enlarged muscles lined with blood vessels that appear to be on the verge of bursting. Another figure draws sharp attention to his buttocks in an almost comical arching of his back. Evoking a sense of masochism, this individual bears a distinctively submissive and performative posture. A third mannequin-like sculpture, in contrast, shows off a pair of bulging shoulders and stands smugly with his hands on his hips. The complex relationships between these three works establishes a certain power structure, compelling the viewer to imagine a contemplative narrative that features these three as protagonists. In another corner of the show, another sculpture depicts a barefoot, disembodied leg riding a skateboard.

Upon first glance, it is easy to classify this work as a flashy contemporary invention based on the glossy texture of the materials and the abstract shapes attached to the foot, but this juxtaposition against a ready-made (the skateboard) grounds this work in the 20th century modern art historical canon. Choi is experimenting with reducing the weight of the rider by eliminating the rest of the body, investigating whether the skateboard will thus gain speed; the artist's interest in the concept of speed also reveals itself in his series of sculptures sitting on various karts (open-wheel, four-wheeled vehicles).

For some time now, Choi has created sculptures of hybrid human bodies combined with several kinds of machines, but this show speaks specifically to the coexistence of immobility and things that produce speed – wheels. In this exhibition, objects that are built to be mobile forgo their original functions in order to exist as sculptures. Some of Choi's works in this show, on the other hand, do not invoke the human body. His orchid sculptures are rooted in the Korean tradition of orchid black ink drawing, which demands the strict following of a particular stroke order, orientation, and weight. Historically, the practice of orchid drawing prioritises rendering perfect strokes in one try through the ceaseless repetition of the same strokes. Choi's approach, however, translates this routine for the modern art scene.

His work appropriates this Korean painting tradition, simply echoing its emphasis on repetition; he transforms flat illustrations into three-dimensional sculptures by cutting works of foamed plastic modelled after his own orchid drawings, honouring the traditional orchid drawing discipline in three dimensions. Similarly, other works in this show evoke the historical Korean folding screen. In a reversed approach from his work with the orchid drawings, Choi has printed his own previously-three-dimensional works onto a flat surface and set up these printed layers as distinct folding screens. By working using these machines and mechanics, he continues to demonstrate resistance against the contemporary criticism of mass production, a common rebuke among art students in Korea.

This exhibition will open concurrently across two galleries, Gallery 2 and P21. Choi's works reveal several compelling dichotomies between soft and rigid, normal and abnormal, realistic and surreal, and engraved and embossed. The artist's unique processes not only dismantle these binaries, they also weave new allegories represented through strange, deformed, and altogether unlikely shapes and forms.

Through taking the time to observe each work, rather than attempting to mine meaning, viewers can experience a different narrative and energy being generated by Choi's misshapen objects. His philosophy is not about eliminating the negative connotations of natural human flaws, but about electing to find new, empowered meaning within them while standing in the thick of the chaos. Any encounter with a human deformity can be traumatising, whether in fiction or reality.

To speak from personal experience, I recently saw a patient nursing a badly swollen foot when I was at a hospital visiting a family member. The skin on his pale foot was dry, brittle, and looked as if the skin covering it had been stretched to its absolute maximum. His big toe must have been almost twice its normal size. This sight was so unfamiliar to me and lingered for a while afterward, making me think about how the precise cause of the swelling of his foot may have been unknown, but was an example of obvious communication that something in his bodily operations had been disrupted.

Haneyl Choi represents the common human body as something born out of a collection of happenings. His sculptural works, ostensibly gleaming with soft, straightforward textures, can hold more destructive meaning once the process of their production is made clear. Even more poignantly, these statues seem to stand in self-praise and take deep pride in their abnormalities. Choi, like every other artist, is given a choice between following aesthetic norms or departing from them each time he creates – for this show, it seems he has decided to depart from them altogether. After all, might his own accumulated experiences, or collection of happenings, merit his ability to redefine bodily experience through his art without having to comply with existing standards? It bears the same sentiment as the universal process of gradually learning how to exist as ourselves, holding close each of our own deeply flawed forms.

Text by Hyo Gyoung Jeon. Press release courtesy P21.