FRIEZE SEOUL 2024

Joyce Ho (b. 1983) is adept at abstracting the sensibilities within the experiential states of the everyday, re- performing fragmented aspects of the quotidian through sculpture, video, and spatial installation. Artist Statement, Studio Corner, and House Keeping (all 2024) reconstruct everyday objects and situations into mixed-media installation forms that hint at Ho’s meticulous observations of her surroundings.

In Studio Corner, the artist frames a section of the studio, with the edges gently highlighted by lightbox shadows, alluding to the necessary yet often overlooked structures. Ho opts for soft fabric as a medium in House Keeping, stacking pieces of cloth into a tower that seems to have been constructed through repetitive gestures of folding and hanging, ultimately conjuring an invisible yet palpable body. Minimalist and sculptural, these installations open a new window into the dialectical relationship between scene and object/object and human.

Ho is part of Connecting Bodies: Asian Women Artists, a group exhibition that opens on September 3, 2024 at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Seoul, Korea. Investigating corporeality in the works of female artists from the 1960s to the present, this exhibition features Ho’s multichannel video work Vera X Diary (2023).

Chen Ching-Yuan (b. 1984) employs colour and composition to construct a layered visual language that has come to define his painting, imbued with a sense of collective sensibility and personal perspective that conveys his observation and reflection on the real world.

Chen brings five new pieces from his latest series ‘Night Walking,’ inspired by his experimentation with the thickness and texture of indigo pigment, as well as his experience and observation at the Organik Festival. Indigo serves as the foundational tone throughout the series. The artist describes this dark colour as akin to the ink of tattoo that fades into a deep blue over time. Whether applied thinly or thickly, it evokes a different sense of colour, permeated with temporality and intimacy. This impels him to portray the allure of the night with indigo, encapsulating light, shadow, emotion, and desire that cascade within. And ‘party’ becomes the theme of this series.

Inspired by a photo taken by a photographer friend, Night Walking II: Mambo depicts two men engaged in an embrace with fluid, dynamic brushstrokes and a minimalist, nuanced palette. Night Walking III: Jacket focuses on the back of a man in a jacket and the distant crowd at a stage performance, capturing the play of light and shadow on the jacket’s fabric with painterly strokes and textures, while subdued details add depth, against a background rendered in thin, diluted paint reminiscent of ink wash. Night Walking V: North Coast evokes in a low contrast the afterimage that occurs after staring at a light source late at night, or the blurred light and shadow experienced during an early morning stroll, a moment of ambiguity gently crafted. A sense of detachment suffuses the ‘Night Walking’ series, where a slow, moist atmosphere envelops people wandering under the moonlight, their faces spectral, obscured before the return of daylight.

Born in Mumbai, India, Amol K. Patil (b. 1987) explores the effects of India’s social system on the members of different castes through sculpture, video, and painting. His 2023 series ‘Lines Between the City’ comprises unembellished bronze torsos and limbs that reveal the social lament of residents living in chawls under the constraints of the caste system.

Also on view is his latest series ‘The Shadow of Luster’ (2024), made during his residency in the Netherlands. The series draws inspiration from Cruelty, a poem by Namdeo Dhasal (1949–2014), an Indian poet and Dalit activist. The artist uses delicate pen lines to depict weathered skin, etched by hard labour, of those living on the fringe of society. These individuals rise from the city’s crevices, fighting to survive in the swiftly expanding urban jungle, pursuing autonomy and prosperity against all odds.

Patil’s works will also be featured in the 15^th Gwangju Biennale: Pansori, a soundscape of the 21^st century, opening on September 7, 2024.