Almine Rech Gallery is pleased to announce the first exhibition by the Korean artist Yeesookyung in Brussels.
In her work, Yeesookyung anticipates the power that traditions still hold in contemporary art. She sees the artist as a medium who has come to relieve wounded souls, and the artist thus takes on the role of the new shaman. Her work enables her to connect with ‘others’, but it also connects the world as a whole by linking the past and the present. At the heart of her work one finds the idea of a rebirth through healing.
For this exhibition, Yeesookyung will present drawings from the ‘Flame’ series as well as her famous ‘Translated Vases’. These different pieces perfectly mirror the artist’s highly sensitive approach, in which a mastered chaos emerges, unfolding in an undefined manner.
Similarly, the ‘Translated Vases’ consist of a re-arranging, a re-assembling of china fragments which were left on the edge of an oven in order to be reassembled and reformatted, sutured by Yeesookyung and covered in gold leaf. Through her imagination, Yeesookyung gives a renewed life to objects which have lost their specific function, and thereby gives birth to new works of art. Thousands of fragments are necessary for this reconstruction process as well as a meticulous approach to find the pieces that can fit together. The ‘new’ ceramics lose their original, curved symmetry, and take on an informal appearance, which immediately draws one’s attention. Fragile yet powerful, a new equilibrium is born out of this reconstruction process: Yeesookyung has given them a new meaning. A destroyed and forgotten tradition is transformed into new, precious and unique objects.
Yeesookyung will also exhibit drawings from the ‘Flame’ series. Flames emerge out of lines, waves, and landscapes. They are drawn in the same red ink which the shamans once used to inscribe talismans. Yeesookyung draws fire and the inner chaos, and offers the audience a splendid view of her inner world through canvases measuring 196 x 260 cm.
Born in 1963, Yeesookyung is Korean, and lives and works in Seoul. Most recently, her work has been presented at the Arko Art Center in Seoul (2010), the Vancouver Biennale (2009-2011), and Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo (2009).