A Familiar Body Becomes an Unfamiliar Landscape… Gladstone Seoul to Host Seung Ah Paik’s 《Floating Islands》 in November

One's own body is more familiar than anything else, yet it is actually difficult to view the whole of it with one's own eyes. The appearance of the body, which changes depending on the position and angle of viewing, sometimes feels like an entirely different shape.

One's own body is more familiar than anything else, yet it is difficult to view the whole of it with one's own eyes. The appearance of the body, which changes depending on the position and angle of viewing, sometimes feels like a completely different shape.

Gladstone Seoul will host the solo exhibition 《Floating Islands》 by artist Seung Ah Paik, who is based in Pittsburgh, United States, starting November 12. This exhibition introduces 12 new works from the 〈Self Configuration〉 series, which the artist has steadily explored the relationship between the body and perspective. Large-scale paintings composed of multiple joined screens can also be encountered.
 

The exhibition title ‘Floating Islands’ reveals the change in bodily expression appearing in recent works. While in the past, parts of the body such as arms and legs were dispersed across the screen, in the new works, different parts gather in one place to form complex shapes. As the elements constituting the body overlap, the original appearance fades, and abstract masses remain on the screen.

This change stems from the artist's unique way of observing the body. Seung Ah Paik takes hundreds of photographs from the angle of looking down at her own body and combines scenes captured at different moments to transfer them into paintings. Unlike typical portraiture, faces do not appear on the screen. This is because they are parts that the artist herself cannot see with her own eyes. The right hand used for photography is also sometimes excluded from the works.

In this way, the works are composed based on the body that has entered her own field of vision, rather than the human body reflected in the eyes of others. As appearances observed from different angles gather on a single plane, images different from the actual structure of the body are created, and viewers find it difficult to easily distinguish which part is an arm or a leg within the screen.

The materials used to complete the works are also noteworthy. Instead of a typical canvas, Seung Ah Paik chooses calico fabric that has not been separately primed. This is a material she encountered while studying fashion design at Central Saint Martins in the United Kingdom. The experience of learning draping techniques, where fabric is placed over a mannequin to create the three-dimensional shape of a garment, led to her subsequent painting work.
 

In the production process, the shape is first captured with charcoal, and wet pigments are applied repeatedly. The untreated fabric does not just leave the paint on the surface but absorbs it between the fibers. In this process, the color blends with the fabric, forming a texture different from typical canvas paintings.

Regarding these new works, Seung Ah Paik explained that as various parts of the body combine more closely than before, they are gradually changing into forms that are increasingly difficult to recognize. The artist compares these created shapes to islands floating above colors, focusing on the process in which a familiar body transforms into a new image.

The exhibition continues until January 9 of next year. Gladstone Seoul is open from Tuesday to Saturday from 10 AM to 6 PM, and is closed on Sundays and Mondays.

Read the original (Korean)