Kukje Gallery
'Next Painting: As We Are'
Showcasing Works by Six Young Artists
Reaffirming the Critical Role of Painting in an Era of Image Excess
"Today, many images neither document the world nor dematerialize it." - Hal Foster
The group exhibition 'Next Painting: As We Are,' featuring six young artists and opening on June 5 at Kukje Gallery in Samcheong-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, stands apart from the above criticism. The participating artists are members of the so-called millennial generation, born between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s. Godeungeo, Kim Saeeun, Yoo Shinae, Lee Eunsae, Jeon Byunggu, and Jung Iji assert that the 'next painting' to come will resist the accelerating speed of digital images and instead offer a sensory experience of slowness. The exhibition's core lies in reaffirming the critical position that painting can occupy in an era of image excess.
Curator Lee Sunghwi, who organized the exhibition, explained its aim by stating, "We focus on how the tension between the digital environment, where speed has become the norm, and the unique slowness inherent to painting as a medium is manifested in the work of contemporary young artists." Lee added, "I believe that painting in the digital age is precisely where we can examine material tension, and it possesses a powerful capacity to reconstruct reality."
As one example, Yoo Shinae's work features a female nude within a model resembling a casino slot machine, which can be interpreted as suggesting that "the belief in salvation guaranteed by capitalism in modern society gives rise to fantasies among contemporary people."
Godeungeo reconstructs sensory perceptions and events from daily life into ambiguous yet unfamiliar images on canvas. Kim Saeeun captures the ever-changing urban environment?transformed by the constant announcement of new urban plans?as both a visual and physical experience, primarily on large-scale canvases. Lee Eunsae, having spent several years in the Netherlands, translated into painting the feeling of drifting and perceiving only the surfaces of objects whenever faced with unfamiliar situations. She collected traces such as stains, misunderstandings, bruises, wounds, remnants, spilled crumbs, and leftover food, and transferred them onto the canvas.
Jeon Byunggu captures moments that are both familiar and strange from everyday life and translates them onto the pictorial plane. Through accumulated layers of time, he renders a fleeting emotion as if it were fixed eternally in material time. Jung Iji attempts to explore the depth of life by incorporating into her paintings the landscapes, objects, and people she observes, along with her thoughts and stories about them. The exhibition runs until July 20.
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