Installation view ©P21

P21 is pleased to present Heemin Chung’s solo exhibition 《How Do We Get Lost in the Forest》, on view from May 20 to June 18, 2022. Chung has consistently captured the moments where new sensations encounter, collide with, and diverge from painting as a traditional and fixed medium. This exhibition features 14 new works that document the artist’s time spent observing familiar objects and landscapes while walking around her studio.

Chung revisits conventional subjects of painting, such as landscapes and still lifes, within the context of contemporary visual culture. She is particularly interested in existential concerns—how individuals adapt to overwhelming urban life, feelings of alienation, and sensory deprivation. Through her work, she attempts to address the emotional implications of these issues and trace the perceptual dimensions that emerge from them. She investigates non-traditional sculptural techniques that model traditional painting materials on the surface, metaphorically exploring shifting existential sensibilities and questioning the meaning of image and material. More recently, she has been examining the perception of time through materiality as a way to escape the widespread sense of depletion and the cultural and political entrapment prevalent in the digital age.

The works exhibited in P1 and P2 stem from this ongoing exploration and consist of studies and drawings that incorporate printing techniques and experiments in material modeling on surfaces. As part of her practice, the artist observes familiar objects and landscapes during walks around her studio, connecting these meditative moments with material experimentation. She regards meditation as a post-processed response to the irrational speed and cognitive collisions of urban life, a method of physically enduring its pressures. Consequently, she has maintained a deep interest in the forms and mediations of meditation.

Installation view ©P21

The works presented in this exhibition originate from Aldous Huxley’s fascination with the folds of Judith’s robe while under the influence of mescaline. Huxley, in his altered state, perceives his surroundings as interwoven with multiple temporalities. Inspired by this perspective, Chung juxtaposes the slowed perception of time experienced when gazing at an object with the trance-like state of device users. Rather than addressing hallucinations in a literal sense, she considers digital devices as a medium for escaping the constraints of physical laws and unified representation—an attempt to disengage from the illusion of subjectivity.

Through microscopic perspectives and close-range movements, Chung approaches her subjects in an intimate manner, incorporating the tactile qualities and accidental formations discovered through her experiments with materials. In her modeling process, where texture gains immediacy and musicality, she focuses on formless or constantly shifting states—such as the night sky embroidered across the surface of paint or the gesture of reading stars. Within this process, the image acquires a body. As layers of acrylic medium obscure and reveal the subject, narrative is erased, guiding viewers into a contemplative experience.

Through sculptural training that liberates form from habitual bodily sensations, linear time, and causality, Chung creates subtle ruptures in the present state of inertia. Her work seeks to approach the unspoken dimensions of nature, desolation, and affect, offering a glimpse into that which remains unnamed.

References