Reconstructions of Memory at Seojung Art
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At Seojung Art Gangnam in Seoul, eight artists explore the many approaches to reinterpretation. Paintings and sculptures on view reflect the different ways memories and sensations can translate into and be translated through art.

Curated by Yunjung Lee, the gallery's senior curator, Reinterpretation (12 May–19 June 2023) organises recent works by Anna Membrino, Rho Eunjoo, Kim Chaelin, Jeong Jiyoon, Kim Chansong, Damian Elwes, Brian Rideout, and Chung Sooyoung into four themes, starting with 'Scenery, Image' on the first floor, which features abstract reflections on encounters with nature.

Anna Membrino's acrylic paintings hang directly to the left of the entrance, where she has painted various surfaces inspired by nature, as with the sleek slopes and more organic, textured treatment of paint in the blue monochrome Cratered (2020).

Hanging on the opposite wall, Blush (2021) shows undulating forms of red, pink, and pale purple against a greyscale backdrop. Lightness lingers in these shapes, whose vertical silhouettes echo plant stems or fabric rippling in the wind. Under soft spotlight, Membrino's paintings trigger the private sensations that one experiences when surrounded by nature's vastness.

Separated by a small flight of stairs are works from Rho Eunjoo's 'Plant' series (2021). Rho, who was awarded the Kumho Young Artist Prize in 2021, has garnered attention for paintings that examine the passage of time through ambiguous forms—often plants—caught between states of change.

At Seojung Art, Rho's loose brushwork in the four narrow canvases Silver Plant 1–4 (2021) summons to mind the constant making and remaking of tendrils and branches that the artist would have painted as she worked. Against the overall grey colour scheme, the plants have been highlighted in white with a soft vignette around them, recalling aged photographs and the cloudiness of old memories.

Nearby are sculptures by Kim Chaelin that add dimensionality to an exhibition otherwise dedicated to paintings. The plaster and rubber Save Me (2023), situated on the floor in front of Rho's 'Plant' paintings, takes the shape of a rectangle with a black handle on one side.

The sculpture's terrazzo-style speckles are joyously colourful, belying its title's urgency. Regardless of the feeling its exterior generates, however, Save Me strongly evokes physical contact, whether from the call for help or the inviting handle.

While Save Me is sadly off limits, one of Kim's works in Reinterpretation does allow viewers to touch in reflection of the artist's longstanding interest in interactive artworks. At 1.35 metres tall, the green rock-like sculpture Landscaping, Modeling and Diorama (2019) extends a playful reminder that physical sensations are the primary medium through which we experience and remember the world.

The next two themes, 'Expression' and 'Movement', continue in an adjoined space with a shared focus on the body and its experiences. Rendered in 2023, Jeong Jiyoon's slice-of-life oil paintings show ordinary people spending time on their own or with others.

The artist paints with large gestures, capturing the entwined figures in Connecting people with decisive strokes and varying shades of blue. Details are minimised while individuals are rendered anonymous, their bodies cropped as if representing scattered, incomplete memories.

Jeong's pale blue palette is complemented by Kim Chansong's vivid pink and red paintings of the human body in the same room. Works like Collapsing, Colliding (2021) appear abstract at first glance, with dark red lines crossing several planes of light pink, only to emerge as huddled fingers and limbs.

Reinterpretation concludes upstairs with 'Space, Studio', featuring paintings by Damian Elwes, Brian Rideout, and Chung Sooyoung. The artist's studio is a running theme across Elwes' work, which draws from archival materials to reconstruct the studios of modern masters.

In the acrylic-on-panel Picasso's Studio (Rue Schoelcher/Paris, 1914) (2023), Picasso's canvases and sculptures are scattered across his studio beside chairs, as if living objects partaking in a gathering.

Elwes' studio re-creations reveal the selective process of reinterpretation—what to show and not, and how—be it observable objects or intangible concepts. Matisse's Studio at Charles Felix Nice (2023), for example, mimics Matisse's colouration and form.

Similarly, Brian Rideout's oil paintings recreate contemporary interiors from online images and prints. American Collection Painting 60 (Twombly, Warhol) (2023) opens to a warmly lit room, furnished with brown-and-cream cabinets and sofas, where Warhol's Marilyn Monroe (1967) and Twombly's large abstract painting hang on the wall.

In his paintings, Rideout condenses countless interiors of the privileged across the U.S. into quiet, unoccupied rooms; his reinterpretations, in turn, conjure layers of history embedded in the original spaces.

At the farther end of the upstairs space are Chung Sooyoung's acrylic still lifes. Chung paints ordinary objects such as flowers and household items on bare linen, drawing a compelling contrast between the matte finish of the paint and the texture and muted colour of the fabric.

Resulting images from the flowers in repurposed vases in Repurposed Still Life (5) (2023) to the bird's-eye view of a shopping basket in Basket (2023) are rendered almost weightless. As with Elwes and Rideout's paintings, Chung's still lifes describe private spatial experiences between the viewer and object that become public in their exhibition.

While many of the works in Reinterpretation begin as products of the artists' reinterpretation of their memories and visual perceptions, they engage viewers in constant renewals of their interpretations as they are read through individual experiences.—[O]