I pretend to Be Okay but, I Am Not Okay

Exhibition Description

I Pretend to Be Okay but, I Am Not Okay: The Way to Lift Up (at) A Dislocated Angle

Their world is disengaged from our world.
Our world is disengaged from their world.

Often, we face events that are incomprehensible, perhaps unforgivable, both inside and outside our dreams. However, staring blankly at an image that has already been otherized and replaced with beauty has become irresistible. Prior to the tragic ending of an incident, what catches the eye is the instantaneous and thin section transmitted through the media. Explosions are accidents and events that are not difficult to find in a long history, but have nothing to do with some people’s daily lives. After the news that filled the world with noise, even for a short time, only vivid colors remain afterimage. In Yang-Ha’s paintings, these colors are translated in a transparent way and at the same time in a transparent intention. The scene of the explosion, which made a stir everywhere, is replaced with a soft and soft landscape with a simple line that resembles children’s animation and propaganda. The result is extremely flat, but rather puts the world full of disparity at the forefront. Obviously, what seemed to be nothing was nothing in retrospect, and none of the people who pretended to be okay were okay. It is a world full of such voices.

The appearance of the St. Maria, who is juxtaposed with the explosion, exists as a self-portrait of the her generation and creates another gap. Unlike Maria in the torch, who sheds tears with a holy face, Maria in her works shed tears of anger as if it were a huge system error. They quietly recite prayers so that oblivion created by others does not swallow the world. And for those who no longer ask about something, they spit out the sentence with a subtle face. The tears on both cheeks, which seem to have a pale bitter taste, talk about what the world had to be and what has to be. Those who do not know whether privileges are privileges or those who do not need identification with Maria can never imagine the weight of tears. Therefore, in this show, she uses the body as much as possible and scatters condensed energy in a limited space. Thinly cast paint and spray membranes form a multilayer visual field by being present in one place, but throughout. This place chooses to be a new place of explosion rather than a hill where soft primary colors caress. The explosion at this time leads to a trigger that overturns the image of women and femininity.

What is clearly revealed in this small space is not just color. When the two dimensions presented by the artist’s brush strokes are placed in different tension states, the space reorganized into canvas is soon recontextualized into three dimensions through a pleasant yet tragic display. The wall does not exist here only as a support and refuses to be a simple surface. Only uneven contours remain as traces of the explosion that has faded above it, but this rather calmly supports the structure of the narrative. They cover and reveal the violence hidden everywhere. To those who expect Maria’s benevolent gaze, now saying that it has all been destroyed with the sound of an explosion resembling a cloud and a flower. At the same time, Maria was recited as a person who knew how to shed tears. Today’s explosion gives rise to an unprecedented place, not Maria’s long prayer or flames-filled ruins. Beauty ruptures here and the remains are placed like pebbles somewhere in our world and their world. Even if each world is in favor of each other, instead of encroaching, we must become a sailboat pushed by the breeze and cross between the stones.

Written by Minji Chun

List of Works

My Dearest Love_6 , 2021, oil and acrylic color on canvas, 40 x 40 cm
A Drawing That Came to Mind When I Saw the Blooming Blue Rain_4, 2021, charcoal, oil and acrylic on canvas, 50 x 50 cm
My Dearest Love_7, 2021, oil and acrylic color on canvas, 90 x 90 cm
My Dearest Love_5 , 2021, stickers, oil and acrylic color on canvas, 80 x 80 cm
Well, It’s a Scene Made to Cry, so I Will_18, 2021, gouache, charcoal, oil and acrylic on canvas, 40 x 40 cm

Dates

November 18-28

Curator

Yang-ha

Artist

Yang-ha

Design

Daan Zeilstra

Photo

Subin Im

Selected Images