Han Hong Park solo Exhibition, October 6th - 18th 2016
Images blurred with water drop markings, often seen through glass, show tiny
glimpses of visions to a passer by. In these paintings, audiences can only guess the
detail of the motifs by assuming what we imagine is what is being portrayed —
questions of authenticity and the truth of the image within art, then turn into mutual
understandings between artist and viewers, relying on each other’s existence, and
knowing that the other party will complete the work of art.
Han Hong’s work suggests a slice of contemporary life via human conventions of the
last century. Cars, glass windows and cities are among the subjects of this work.
Much like the old Western masters of the late 18 th century, his work captures
metropolitan life with a light that captures the crisp and cold atmosphere. But
unlike those masters who capture the “miracles of the contemporary world”, in Han
Hong’s work, the very conventions that are often accused of distancing individuals
are becoming the ones that evoke the feeling of longing and nostalgia. Han Hong’s
visions through these rainy cityscapes become a monument of contemporary life.
Isolated, yet connected through an experience of metropolitan cities for those who
live in them, his images glorify and conceptualize a look of melancholia as the face of
a collective experience of 21 st century life.