Nayeon Koh

Residency Programme: November 2017

In her home town, Gona teaches traditional Korean painting made with Hanji paper and Korean ink – alongside this she also works with oils on canvas.
Her works study the human body and its movements, but during her residency month she decided to expand her academic knowledge and translate her practice into new means and materials. Consequently, her analysis of the body becomes increasingly abstract, shifting into a conglomerate of parts interlaced and interconnected, creating new morphologies, or multiple bodies. The unit formed of incomplete parts.
Throughout her residency, Gona detaches from traditional materials. Now line is not only made by ink but can also be a piece of wire, or a delicate strand of paper that she tears and dyes.
By choosing translucent surfaces and suspended pieces, Gona creates a dialogue between fragility and subtlety, and the bold swarms of rapid brushstrokes. Gona’s work carefully balances expression and restraint, reflecting in a sense two disparate yet coexistent forms within the body – entropic strength and pensive movement.

Preceding the stairs leading up to the exhibition space, the artist presents a piece made with Hanji paper dyed with korean ink, woven into a metal grid. The paper and ink are reminiscent of her background in traditional korean drawing, while the grid can also be seen as representing those made for anatomic drawing studies. For Gona, putting dried paper in the grid was like sewing. The purpose of sewing is to connect one thing with another. A connection that creates another world. This piece is a material and abstract conclusion of her studies regarding the body, and of her process during the month. The drawings presented on the upper floor continue to search for a position between abstraction and realism, and explore the expressive potential of various materials and techniques.