Statement
The world is full of paradox.
There is always a need for the existence of opposing forces. Imagine the functioning of heartbeat. It operates by the forces of two opposing actions: Contracts and Expands. When we are cold, we need warmth. When we are hot, we need coolness.
On the other hand, when someone forbid me from doing something, it may even cause my increasing desire of doing it. I somehow believe that this is the basic rules of the world. Eventually, I am motivated by this and my work is mostly inspired by this concept — Beginning of the stop. There are two interpretations for “Begin" and “Stop”.
Blue is generally defined as cool color tone. However, the hottest part of fire is also appears to be blue, same as the hottest star in the universe. This is an example of opposing forces, and that is why blue always appears in my work, and I am fascinated in it.
나는 그림도 하나의 생명체이거나 하나의 우주라고 생각한다. 생명을 만들기 위해서는 세상의 법칙을 그림에 담아야 한다고 생각했고, 내가 생각한 세상의 법칙은 ‘반대의 법칙’이다.
‘정지의 시작’ ‘자유의 법칙’ ‘순간의 단면’ 등의 시리즈들은 세상의 여러 반대성을 표현한다. 움직임의 역설, 자유의 역설, 시간과 공간의 개념 등 세상에 존재하는 반대의 법칙들을 표현한다. 이들은 모두 비슷하지만 다르고, 닮아있지만 분명히 다른 존재이다.
푸른색은 일반적으로 차가운 색감이지만, 가장 뜨거운 색도 푸른색이듯이 역설적인 색이다.. 또한 하늘도 푸른색, 물도 푸른색, 지구도 푸른색. 푸른색은 역설이 세상은 기본이라는 나의 개념과 가장 잘 맞는 색상이다. 하지만 반대의 법칙에 의해 단색 후엔 다양한 색이, 단순한 그림 뒤엔 화려한 그림이. 이런 식으로 나는 세상의 법칙에 의해 나의 우주를 펼쳐가고 있다.
Critique
Seung Yoon Choi’s definitive brush touch leaves blue strokes on canvas that move organically, and encounter and overlap themselves to create dynamic images. He expresses the fundamentals of the invisible world with the sensation from color and the movement from the brush strokes. Many of his works are mainly solid blue. It is the color of the essence and ambilaterality for him, which best suits the concept of paradox and balance that he wants to express. It is the primary color of earth when light first encounters the sky and water, and contains both sides of hope and despair, and fervent and cold.
With his custom made tools, he dashes off on a canvas laid flat on the floor, and captures both the painterly movement and the moment of abeyance. His vision of the world’s essence is comprised of oxymoron. He often thinks of such unnoticeable things around us, and reads the world of coexistence and balance between the opposites; the universe and the lives, Yin and Yang, beginnings and ends, and so on.
His lines and spaces are precisely controlled as if they move, collide, harmonize and ultimately come to life on canvas. Some titles of his work such as <Start of Stop>, <Completion of Start> and <Section of Time> suggest that beginnings and ends are parallel and are in contact. They are inseparable whole and ‘one’.
Here we can see that time and movement are understood as a flux. According to Henri Bergson, there are only perpetual changes in the context of eternal time, and thus beginning and end are essentially a single entity. This persistency is a route to pure changes, lives and movements. Hence, it inevitably implies totality. The consciousness of life does not exist independently but unfolds as a continuous flux connected others. His painting is a generative maneuver that creates qualitative differences, and manifestation of repetitively changing lives.
by Kang juyeon