His art world started from continuous considerations and analyses for paintings. When he was in college, he posed a question on the minimum unit constituting paintings, ultimately, the minimum unit in images, in order to establish his own art world. Unlike conventional formalistic or abstract approach that has been discussed in art, he has developed his own theory on images by applying scientific approach. Thanks to his efforts, the concept of ‘Imaquark’ emerged. The term of Imaquark is composed of “Ima”, from image, and “Quark”, from quark which is the fundamental constituent of matter.
Therefore, Imaquark is the minimum unit of images that includes not just formal and material but also notional meanings. Imaquark is created, patterned, and embodied in the images through his observation and numerous drawings by automatism, or unconscious drawings. In other words, his work is the journey to finding his formative art world, focusing on organic processes where the minimum units gather and create new compositions. While his early works are about the establishment, formation and structure of Imaquark, his later pieces in the solo exhibitions 《Saint Brain Temple》, Brain Factory, 2006 or 《Covert party at Makom》, Project Space Sarubia, 2008, show his efforts to find how substance and meanings are organically combined and formed with Imaquark.
In other words, he related the minimum units of paintings to sublime by going beyond structural and formal understanding of the units to its notional understanding. Researching exhibition venues as ‘a place’, he imitated religious places, including cathedrals and temples to show the context of the sublime that ‘I-Wonhyung ’ has. To imitate the sublime, he created a place for the respect and fear that can come up when viewers go to mastabas of ancient civilizations.
In 《Languages of Clash: The Fault Lines》, Ahn Doojin approaches to ‘Wonhyung’, the organic composition of ‘Imaquark’, as a concept of a singularity. In mathematics and mechanics, a singularity is a point at which a given mathematical object is not defined, or a configuration of a mechanism where the subsequent behavior cannot be predicted, or the forces or other physical quantities involved become infinite or nondeterministic. The artist regards the singularity as a metaphor of ‘I-Wonhyung1’ and identifies its properties with those of images as images are also indeterminate. The subject of the exhibition ‘Fault Line’ is the surface trace of a fault, the line of intersection between the fault plane and the Earth's surface. In this exhibition, ‘Fault line’ is a symbol of the singularity as well as the meaning of ‘clash and confrontation’ that are properties of images.
In the exhibition, Ahn Doojin approaches to SongEun ArtSpace as a place that the meaning of ‘clash’ of Imaquark and its art world are embodied rather than as a space. and the series of , new works in 2011, show the properties of clashes and confrontations from ‘image Wonhyung’. These works are based on techniques and sentiments from Romanticism with dramatic and dynamic energy. The series of (2011) constitutes a canvas with two parts, the sky and the land in the traditional dichotomy. It describes sunlight between dark clouds, endless mountains and enormous tidal waves, flames shooting up into the air and thunderstorms likely to rage with heavy rain and lightning.
Human crowd is described as extremely tiny and week existences in front of apocalyptically gigantic nature in the painting. Human crowd fighting in a war despite of the huge disaster shows extreme chaotic situations. The point to be focused is that the subject of the painting triggers tensions and the tragic, while traditional techniques and patterned ‘Imaquark’ units appearing the whole painting contrast to each other. The artist presents the energy of clash and confrontation by saying, “From the contrast between ‘pattern’ which is the way of painting and ‘actual view’ which is the appearance, a structure of each element is exchanged”. Such clashes on the structures and the context continue in the way of seeing the art works. As soon as viewers enter space, they face with (2011) that two canvases are put together.
By hung inclined from the ceiling, landscapes in the painting seem poured out to over the head. It gives viewers unusual and different experiences from the traditional way of seeing. The work dramatically shows a moment that lightning flashes in the middle of dark black clouds with thunder over the horizon from far away. Viewers seem able to see the whole painting at once, but the installation angle intentionally against the ordinary view and perspective overwhelm viewers. (2011) in the last dark room is a panorama installation version converted from the series of cave paintings which have been presented in ‘One Day: Room Project’, Total Museum, 2009. Surrounded by the scenery that dark clouds gathering, viewers are in confused and uneasy situation that they are unable to look the whole work.
A tornado which is installed from 2nd to 4th floors presents a 3-dimensional interpretation on the properties of clashes and confrontations from ‘Imaquark Wonhyung’. For the artist, the tornado likens unpredictable and inconclusive properties. Although ‘Imaquark’ units form the tornado organically and also systematically, systematic gathering of ‘Imaquark’ ultimately becomes the singularity that creates a giant chaotic state. Ahn, Doo-Jin presents his drawings from 2005 to 2011 first time in this exhibition. These are the results from the unconscious notions as well as studies for main exhibits. His drawings will show not only various combinations of ‘Imaquark’ but also the artist’s cautious observation and concentration.
