seeing objects from a new perspective (Byung-kyu Do and Min-young Bae)

So Young Shin (Chief Curator, PYO Gallery)

Our aesthetic senses respond on an unconscious level as they continuously come into contact with the experiential world around us, and in the process erode the unadulterated senses each of us is born with. In a capitalist society placing the highest emphasis on material wealth, we tend to recognize objects through conceptual images of their functions and stereotyped roles. However, these conceptual images of objects are now being challenged: modern art is witnessing creative approaches by today's artists adopting fresh perspectives and reshaping the images of objects through their unhindered imaginations.

The exhibition titled “Seeing beyond Seeing” introduces Byung-gyu Do and Min-young Bae, two artists who also have discarded the frame of conceptual images. At the touch of their brushes, familiar objects gain entirely new meanings reflecting the artists' own memories and beliefs. Although each contemplates different objects from different points of view, both show a sense of his/her identity in the form of the objects reborn on their canvases. At the same time, the objects also suggest a glimmer of the intricate psychologies involved in the innate emotions and desires of man.

The medium of choice for Byung-gyu Do is dolls: they are both his conceptions and his physical expression. At the same time dolls are also the perfect tool for communicating the artist's inner self. Expressing himself by means of dolls liberates Do from the restrictions of the mundane world. By embodying in the form of dolls his actions and thoughts, dreams and desires, and even the instincts lying in the depths of the subconscious, he transcends the secular boundaries. Dolls are his alter ego, his other self that he can construct precisely the way he wants. Sublimating the experiences and memories from his youth into various subjects of desire, Do uses dolls to paint a descriptive picture of the ambiguous feelings of contradictions from his childhood when he would abuse and kill a plaything, for example a frog, then bury the body in solemn mourning over its death.

These sexual or violent games from his childhood are not likely to be limited to Do's experiences alone. Most of us can vaguely remember indulging in sadistic acts of sexual love against a doll. Rising above a child's simple curiosity, it is an intuitive game of the senses we play by ourselves. In a number of Do's paintings, sticky liquid can be observed dripping down a doll's face. This brings back recollections of the life inside our mothers' womb where we were also enveloped by mucous waters, like the amniotic fluid. It refuses contact with the anything, and nothing wants to touch it either. The shape of such a mucous liquid is a protective layer sheltering the intrinsic identity and desires of man. It is also a substitution that satisfies the ego's instincts otherwise suppressed by social norms. The dolls' eyes stare aloof and distant, like those of someone dreaming of restraint. Their equivocal gazes reveal nothing, reminding us of images in the mirror that reflect the deepest undercurrents of the human emotions.

In "Seventeen Babies", more tiny dolls lie scattered where the body fluid has drooled. The smooth surface reflects the face of the large doll dripping the liquid, so that what is and what is not appear to be connected as one. Two dolls each gaze in different directions in "Twins" but their heads and hands are joined by mucous fluid, denoting their togetherness as a community. In this way, Do layers emotions from human nature and the diverse factors resulting thereof onto the dolls in one canvas, reconstructing his own story in the form of a fetish.

His newest works also illustrate another persona in addition to the mucous body fluid. The mask worn by a doll is a representation of the ideal self that adapts itself to the demands made and roles defined by the society, and this additional safeguard protects the self against the outside environment. Do explores the symbolic aspects of such an environment with its ambiguous boundaries between social expectations and the unique psychologies of the individual living within the framework of society and family. What kind of expression the doll may be wearing behind its mask is left completely to our own imaginations.

On the other end of the spectrum, Min-young Bae employs a wide range of materials. These mainly include a crowd comprising of music bands, ducks, cooks, and good-luck charms in the shape of tiny gold pigs, liquor in glass bottles all shaped differently, shiny stainless steel utensils stacked in a neat pile such as may be found in a dishware shop, as well as translucent and delicate crystal handicrafts. The subjects in her works define the existence of the empirical environment as excessive or superfluous beings. In the absence of such excess is the world of the senses which whispers to us seductively, alienating itself from the meanings of experience.

Ultimately, the objects in Bae's works signify on the whole an image of futility rather than abundance. Through the value of excess, the artist points out the intrinsic desires of man and embodies another kind of desire in pursuit of vicarious satisfaction. Bae also conveys a nihilistic outlook on this uniform modern society in which people agonize over how they are perceived by others instead of what they truly want, where everyone is filled with the compulsion to appear and be seen a certain way. She endows ordinary objects with new meaning and existence through a series of paradoxes and irony of two extremes, and an endless repetition of contradictory values running counter to each other only to be reconciled again in face of human desires. Bae commands a versatile range of both frank and indirect means of expressing the discrepancies in our lives.

The images created by the two artists in this exhibition also indicate a standard of absolute beauty outlined in precisely the way they intended. Instead of limiting themselves to conceptual images, Do and Bae bring together different senses as one, presenting a vision of unity in this world which grows further disintegrated by the day. One day perhaps we may step beyond even the fresh perceptions of their works today to glimpse at yet another world of unfettered imaginations and new visual experiences.