Archive: Choi Myoungyoung "Conditional Planes"

On September 1, the exhibition "Conditional Planes" by Korean Dansaekhwa painter Choi Myuong Young will open for 40 days.

Korean monochromatic painting is not a concept that came out of nowhere. It is the result of a long process of acquiring one's own method of painting under the critical question of what is the essence of painting. It differs from Japanese Monona, which focused on the ontological relationship between objects and the artist, and from Western Minimalism, which introduced industrial processes into the art world and presented a new attitude toward materials and the world. Choi's work is based on the questions of where is the artist's mission in practicing art, what is the essence of painting, and what kind of painting methodology overcomes the inherent problem of the dual division between matter and spirit.

｢Conditional Planes｣ is a working title that Choi has been working on since the mid-1970s, a long journey to grasp her own independent pictorial existence. In the 1970s, Choi began to reflect on the recovery of tradition and began to project the Korean climate (the four seasons), oriental thought, Confucian moderation, and simple living philosophy into her flat works.

In the 1970s, Choi's work began with the series "Equation," in which he rubbed paint on canvas with sandpaper to dissipate the material into the plane, and repeatedly rubbed texture with his fingerprints to spiritualize the material. In the late 1970s, he applied paint with a roller to the canvas, setting the possibilities and limits of physical activity and material expression within the radius of physical activity. In the 1980s, he used Hanji as a material and poked holes with an awl to allow the material to penetrate the Hanji, vividly realizing tactility. In the mid-to-late 1980s, he created the intersection of history (past) and reality (present) on the screen through repeated vertical and horizontal works. Since 2015, he has been selectively revealing the canvas backing to pursue the chemical union of matter (the settling of paint) and spirit (the empty possession). Currently, through the synthesis of more than half a century of work, he has discovered inevitability in the accidentality of painting, and pursues a painting of free flow and change.