Installation view of 《Curtain Call》 (ThisWeekendRoom, 2022) ©ThisWeekendRoom

Before dawn, the night under the black light holds more secrets than the bright day. Likewise, a darker trace remains in the place where it passed than when something was clearly in front of your eyes. The following story, which begins again from the scene that seemed to have ended, is the common thread found in the works of Jinhee Kim and Minyoung Choi.

The exhibition 《Curtain Call》 deals with the gaze toward the beings behind the scenes that two artists who have been working in different places are paying attention to. They describe the psychological and emotional motifs that are not verbalized as a unique texture while considering the peripheral thoughts that everyday individuals might have. 

Installation view of 《Curtain Call》 (ThisWeekendRoom, 2022) ©ThisWeekendRoom

Jinhee Kim has constantly been observing the inner side of the human being and switching it into figures that can hold it. Her recent works focus on putting memories and impressions absent in the present onto an empty stage. The figures continue to perform trivial acts in unknown spaces. Those who stare blankly at one place, hold small objects in their hand carefully, or sometimes crouch down their large bodies behind narrow spaces seem to be somewhat unstable rather than peaceful.

In addition, the contrast of the intense colours and light that dominate paintings becomes an effective device for visualizing the complex emotional layers of unfortunate events such as death, loss, and farewell. The rounded bodies placed between the carefully calculated theatrical light and architectural structures collide with each other and produce peculiar auras. The atmosphere stimulates an ambivalent sense of humour, bitterness, tension, and emptiness. The narrative of absence and deficiency is treated as a light but still melancholy within Kim’s world. The blanks of something that each character has lost off-screen are filled with the audience’s personal experience. 

Minyoung Choi imagines things that can be seen when she closes her eyes or are paradoxically revealed in her view when the light recedes, and darkness fills her surroundings. Thus, night and dream become a territory for her imagination for Choi. Images likely to be seen only in the middle area between real and virtual primarily come from scenes that Choi has in her mind or inspiration from unfamiliar surroundings. For example, the ‘Slightly Frightened Creatures’ are unknown creatures that once appeared in her dream and actively became the main character of the situation.

These star-shaped creatures rewrite the faded dream of the artist by going up and down the stairs or wandering around places where people would have stayed. Furthermore, masked characters and wild animals appearing under the moonlight are visualized as dreamy landscapes from the natural scenes that Choi encountered while staying in a strange area. Like the sentences of poetic permissibility that go against conventional grammar but can exist, various unknown objects are born freely in Choi’s paintings and continue to create surreal spectacles.  
 
The philosopher Alain Badiou once described darkness as ‘the occurrence of both limited and infinite actions’. The light and shade which dominate the works of Jinhee Kim and Minyoung Choi reveal the things that are unclear under logical grammar. In their world, fear and curiosity, sadness and happiness, absence and reality exist as being able to coexist in various layers at a time rather than standing in a contentious relationship. In front of the two artists’ rhetorical languages touching the potential senses at the edge of reality, we await the stories behind the curtain that is not yet finished.


Text | Jihyung Park (Curator, ThisWeekendRoom)

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