"Light and Shadow Synthesized for an Optical Illusion"
Written by Kho, Chung hwan
Lim, Jeoungeun’s glass work portrays diversified themes, dealing with two basic categories- plane figure variations and installations. Plane art works involve glass etching, in which Lim uses the sand blast technique that is the spraying of compressed air and emery powder that polishes the plane of a glass plate, thereon constructing a geometrical form. Although the basic module of her artistic productions are based upon square shapes, applying the etching techniques (distinction of light and shade) enables her to transform plane figures into different configurations that look as if they are three dimensional.
The artist piles up glass plates at a consistent distance. Lim tends to pile up two to three plates of glass together, but in some cases, she combines several plates of glass in order to accentuate an illusion effect. The shadows, produced between the space of two glass planes, blend in with the overall art piece, highlighting the color contrast of the glass squares. The art piece goes on to produce an optical illusion through the variation of square and cube figures produced by the glass plates and its shadows, stimulating a feeling of weightlessness and infinity. Hence, an optical illusion is not an abstract aspect of her overall work, but a core element created with the help of shadows. The limitation between images and shadow, reality and a virtual reality, actual existence and fabrication, subside, often shown via illusion games.
Along with acryl or glass plates, Lim has adopted mirrors as materials for her recent art pieces. Mirrors enable her to enunciate the square and cube forms, maximizing the efficacy of optical illusion. She piles up similar or different materials one on another (utilizing a glass plate, which on the front side shows an etching and the back, displays a partly scraped mirror) both amassed to increase an ornate illusion.
In terms of her installations, the artist prints (using stencil techniques) various different geometrical figures and alters the color of her artistic production by baking it inside a kiln at 200 to 300 degrees. She installs the glass plates vertically and horizontally, which creates a larger illusion effect when more glass plates are added to the piece. The form and colors of the glass creates a certain tone in the shadow on the wall. The combination of the image and the shadow blends in with the image of the glass plate’s surface, thus creating a stained glass (or the way one looks at it, it can seem more colorful) effect that resembles the smoke of incense burning. The colorful mix between the images and shadows generate excitement for the audience, who has the liberty to create their own interpretation of the artists’ work (the images are defined upon the viewer’s discretion). The artist’s work serves as an emblem of interplay arts.
In her recent art works, Lim's installs the glass plates in a diagonal direction instead of installing them horizontally or vertically, deriving a consistent change in the illusion effect. The significance of her recent work, involves the printing images in the corner of the glass plates. The printing on the glass plate’s surface are installed to be in accord with the wall which makes a toned shadow on the wall’s surface. Certainly, the image of the print on the glass plate and the shadow on the wall’s surface creates a mass that looks like a sequenced shape of a cube. Lim also uses round shape glass plates to give change to form or piles the glass plates to formulate a cornered shape (for example, reiterating the glass plates into a zigzag form) associating her work with optical art that maximizes the effect of illusion.
Indeed her art work is based upon the artist’s internal interest in the Universe and the fundamental idea of existence. Lim’s work is connected to the principle of essence, and this is shown through the basic modules of squares and cubes that diversify into geometrical shapes. Lim considers the square and a circle as the emblem of the world’s basic figures. A circle, which seems closed from outside the line, actually epitomizes an ongoing chain of reaction that continues to go around and around. In terms of the square, its sides may represent closed doors, but on the other hand, these sides or doors can define a sense of safety or stability.
Accordingly, the square is as table form and the cube which is a variation of the square is a module of the universe (a grid or lattice form, which is the smallest unit of a digital image). Upon this idea, the world’s smallest unit is consisted of combined articles representing the idea of fortuity and necessity. Ultimately, this idea portrays the harmony between reality and ideology through geometrical shapes. In this context, geometry is neither a coincidental and contingent art of science nor a supplement of different forms, but is in itself a product of pure art. Harmony, balance, rhythm, and proportion that are considered to be the rules of traditional aesthetics (manners or style) are based upon mathematics or derived from geometry. Here with, Lim’s art work internally deals with the world’s fundamental respect for existence expressed through the shapes of squares and its variations. As a result of this, we can see her intention to reorganize or reconstruct a world through decorated formality.
The artist’s ideology on fundamental form is connected to existence and light. If squares and cubes (the reformation of squares) are illustrated as pure figures or ideological forms, then light is how they become visible to the human eye. In other words, light gives birth to form and color. Light brings about colored surfaces and colored shadows and ultimately is the deliverer of the interaction between images and shadows- the fundamental subjects of optical illusion. Light meets transparent materials such as acryl and glass plates, which enhance the images far back. When light meets the reflections on a mirror, the images expand further from its boundary into other surroundings. Like so, light permits images to diversify as well as allowing them to expand further from its mark, decreasing the preconceptions of boundary. Thus, the boundaries of in and out become ambiguous and image (reality) and shadow (fiction) lose their demarcation. Shadows are considered most often to be but a remnant of images, but shadows actually are more strikingly significant than the image itself in the artist’s work. Shadows transform a plane image into cube-like figure, ultimately adding a sense of discreteness. Along with that, shadows emphasize the illusion effect of the art piece when the colored surface and shadow blend in together.
When viewing Lim, Jeoungeun’s work, words like reflection, mirror, transmission and permeation come to my mind. All of which combine aspects of the inside and outside, abating limitations. Her ideas are based upon the idea of interconnection and connotative meanings. She transforms a square, the smallest unit into a cube, or a shadow and expands these images into larger form of space. Her works carry out the ideas of equivocal, non-deterministic states and the open structures of existence, based upon her main idea about multi-existence and double existence. These ideas have been shown through her life’s work, which have been attracting great appeal from her audience. What could have been merely a mechanical idea put together through geometrical reiterations became a rather colorful kaleidoscope of images and shadows with the help of light.
Translated by Jane Yoo
Artist statement _May, 2009
Ⅰ.
"The Space of Imagination" expresses the photographic image of myself, light, and glass while it indirectly tells my personal story. Such as in the Bible, "God said, Let there be light, and there was light", light is the starting point of all kinds of histories. We see the brightness and darkness of the world through the reflecting light of all things under the sun. For me, light means all things which hold people's eyes. As all things look different, depending on the amount and angle of light, we see objects through our viewpoints and build our own thoughts and knowledge about them. Sometimes, depending on the situation, it happens that the essence of things are distorted. To see all things through light is not the only way; we can find so many ways to see things through our imagination from the reflection of light.
We often see the various silhouettes of glass when light reflects on it and it always becomes meaningful for me to get unexpected impressions when the light penetrates the glass and makes various and unique images from it.
It is not like dividing the world into two parts, of what we can see and what we can't; it is rather the total expression of countless emotions through the reflection of light on the glass like holding "the endless wave of emotions". When light penetrates the glass and makes colorful reflections on the white wall, the beauty of light becomes amplified.
Ⅱ.
We are living in a box. Most spaces around me are shaped of boxes. My bedroom, car, studio, school, cafe, etc. There exists a documentary of our lives. Nevertheless, these boxes are fluid because we always move here and there, so our eyes meet where we move and in what we see. I take photos of the image of those moments and put them into the square space of a cube. The cube is not only composed of one style. I overlap several images at the same time, or I arrange all images regularly or irregularly and from time to time I use diagonal lines to put the images into the reflected light.
Depending on the location of the spectator, the rhythms and the optical illusions formed by the image are different. It is similar to our lives, which we can describe as a stack of time. In addition, when a regular or black mirror is put between images, it produces interesting images, varying with the amount and angle of light. When I shine light on the colorfully painted shapes of both sides of a glass pane, many colorful shadows of the light reflecting form a cubic effect on the white wall. It breaks the fixed idea that shadows are "black" and creates a new active space of colors.
I am slowly taking steps forward into the world through a glass window. I prefer to meet and endure what I want to express even though it is a little bit behind the times. I often hesitate and my mind is often disturbed, but the journey to find my identity through creating art will continue.
Lim, JeoungEun
Education
M.F.A. Dept. of Printmaking, R.I.T. at Rochester, New York
M.F.A. Dept. of Printmaking, Sung-Shin Women's Univ.,Seoul
B.F.A. Dept. of Industrial Design, Sung-Shin Women's Univ., Seoul
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2009 Invitational Show, “Imagining inside space”
Gallery Whitehall, Seoul, Korea
2008 Invitational Show, “Traces of cube” Gallery SoSo, Hayri, Korea
2007 Invitational Show, “The glass concert” Gallery Challa Island JeJu, Korea
2006 Invitational Show, “Light and shadow synthesized for an optical illusion”
KimJinHae Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2004 Invitational Show, “Stories created by the light-imagination“
SongEun Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2001 Invitational Show, “Stories created by the light”
Blackfish Gallery, Portland, Oregon
1998 Gana Art Space, Seoul, Korea
1994 Invitational Show, "A cube as form" Touchstone Gallery, Washington, DC
Selected Group Exhibitions
2010 “Science playground”, JeJu museumofArt, IslandJeJu
2009 "Book Arts 9 people Art & Book", Book salon Gallery Library of
SangMyung University 2F
2008 "Matrix, Master-The 30th Seoul Print Club", posco art museum, Seoul
- Your Mind's Eye Digital Spectrum Exhibition, Seoul Metropolitan Art Museum, Korea
- ’TREND-up to the minute’ Korea Art Center, Busan, Korea
2007 Contemporary Korean Print(1958 to 2008) National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea
- Invitational Show, Savina Museum "Science & Art 2007", AT Center, Seoul, Korea
- "Art and math sympathy ∥ Show", Savina Museum, Seoul, Korea
- "Visual reflection", Gallery Artpark, Seoul, Korea
- Seoul Art Show-Print, Seoul Metropolitan Art Museum, Korea
- 2007 “A wise answer to a silly question", Gallery KunstDoc, Seoul, Korea
- “NO_BOUNDS 2007-I” Gallery contemporary sun, Seoul, Korea
Etc.
Collections
National Museum of Contemporary Art- Art Bank, Seoul, Korea
Ritz Calton Hotel Seoul, Korea
Reed College, Oregon, USA
P.N.C.A. PDX, USA
Busan Metropolitan Art Museum, Busan, Korea
Nong Shim Hotel, Busan, Korea
Han Glass Inc. Seoul, Korea
The Korea Metal Journal, Seoul, Korea
Hana Bank, Seoul, Korea
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