From the 8th to Jan. 31 next year, an exhibition by artist An Bong-gyun will be held at the lobby gallery "True Luxury with ART" at the Grand InterContinental Seoul Parnas hotel at Samseong Station.
An Bong-gyun is an artist who works with tactile text and images. Based in Yongin, Gyeonggi, the artist has been active, holding 20 solo exhibitions and presenting work at domestic and international biennales, triennials, and art fairs.
The artist borrows the distinctive imagery of ancient archaeological inscriptions densely engraved with letters, focusing on reconstructing visual weight and the formal properties of shape on the canvas. The work draws in East Asian calligraphy, wood engraving, and seal engraving on a single picture plane, and combines intaglio and relief text of literary content with illusionistic painting to address the relationship between image and text.
Small living creatures such as butterflies, snails, and shells also appear as metaphors for nature in the work. These creatures push against the firmly imprinted text to create trajectories, reconstructing a contemplative space for history, civilization, and nature.
The process builds letter forms resembling old inscriptions on the front of the canvas using modeling compound. The artist then applies color in multiple layers, overlapping and carving back repeatedly.
Viewers experience memory and oblivion in the images of text plates that appear and disappear, and can appreciate a visual and tactile painting of a virtual scene where civilization and nature blend.
Art critic Choi Tae-man (Kookmin University professor) said, "The texture created by letters carved with a grinder stimulates tactile imagination," and explained, "Tactile imagination is encouraged not only because the surface of the picture has a rugged texture, but also because, as one traces the three-dimensional surface created by erased letters and its contours, one is guided to perceive form and depth."
Meanwhile, through a collaboration with the art planning firm StART ART KOREA, the Grand InterContinental Seoul Parnas hotel has introduced works by leading Korean artists such as Lee Ufan, Lee Bae, Lee Kang-so, Park Seo-bo, Kim Chang-yeul, Kim Tae-ho, and Kim Byung-jong, as well as overseas artists such as Julian Opie, Alex Katz, and Jim Dine, presenting blue-chip artists of the art scene at the lobby gallery "True Luxury with ART."