encounter

Foreign, Korean Artists Share Common Ideas

“Lisbon 14” by Antonio Julio Duarte
By Cathy Rose A. Garcia
Staff Reporter

Art does not know any boundaries, as shown in the exhibition ``Encounter: Dublin, Lisbon, Hong Kong and Seoul.'' Artists from Hong Kong, Portugal, Ireland and Korea are showing artworks where they tackle common social issues in their own distinctive personal styles.

Wilson Shieh, Lui Chunkwong, Antonio Julio Duarte and Anthony Haughey are participating in the exhibition at the Korea Foundation Cultural Center (KFCC) gallery, which originally featured 10 Korean contemporary artists.

``The artists from these countries deal with similar themes as their Korean counterparts, and this only shows that issues such as acceptance and refusal, observation and involvement are globally pursued by artists today,'' said Choi Eun-ju, director at the National Museum of Art Deoksu Palace.

The exhibit's theme is ``To Have and To Be,'' taken from Erich Fromm's book, and features works dealing with common themes of materialism, capitalism and meditation.

Shieh and Duarte both use urban life as a starting point for their art, while Lui and Haughey's works have a more contemplative premise.

Shieh, a Hong Kong-based artist, created two delicate ink paintings on silk canvas from his ``Ladyland'' series, which showed the interesting contrast between traditional materials and modern themes.



``I wanted to portray the image of a lady in different situations and transform it into a female icon. In `The Queen,' the woman is standing on a bamboo rope held by two men. She's wearing a Victorian-style costume, but at the same time, she's wearing a clown's hat. The idea is to use these traditional images and infuse it with humor and modernity,'' Shieh told The Korea Times.

Duarte, an artist from Lisbon, was also in Seoul for the exhibition opening Wednesday. His photographs show indoor scenes with artificial plants and fake landscape backgrounds. On first glance, the photographs may seem staged and surreal, but these were taken inside actual restaurants and nothing was changed.

``This is part of a series `From Nature,' that deals with nature and how society tries to incorporate elements of nature in places like restaurants. We have this need to be close to nature, even if it is fake,'' Duarte told The Korea Times.

``From Nature 14 Lisbon'' shows an empty chair with a landscape background, which Duarte says was taken inside a 19th century studio. ``I like the (contrast) of trying to be photographed in nature, but inside a studio. It's a very strange situation,'' he said.

Lui, another artist from Hong Kong, showed a series of stripe paintings featuring thin vertical lines of grays and blues in a very elegant style.

In an interview, Lui explained how he creates these deceptively simple works. He first scratches the canvas from top to bottom to create the lines. Then he pours the paint from the top and lets the paint flow through the lines to create the stripes.

Haughey, an Irish photographer, presented photographs of conflict-ridden areas in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Kosovo for his series ``Disputed Territory.'' One of his photographs shows a stack of red coffins in Kosovo, while another shows a field littered with shotgun cartridges along the border of Northern Ireland.

The works of Korean artists are also attracting attention, like Kim You-sun's mother of pearl installation piece ``1880-Summer-Forrest-Gogh series,'' Hong Soo-yeun's painting ``Casting Call Red #3'' and Yim Tae-kyu's whimsical painting ``Fly Away Home #12.''

The exhibition runs through Jan. 21. Admission is free. Visit www.kfcenter.or.kr or call (02) 3789-5600.

cathy@koreatimes.co.kr