LIM ChaeWook

Crumpled MountainsReborn asVitalizing Rocks.

One day in 2013, upset over the results of repeated errors that occurred while I was printing my mountain photographs on Hanji(Traditionalkoreanmubbery paper), I crumpled and threw away the photograph. Suddenly the photography thrown away at the corner of a room seemed to look like rock mass, and I felt the vital energy from it. After that day I overcame the flatness of the photographic picture plane which I have contemplated for a long time, and have been exploring new possibilities of picturesque expressions.

Since I majored in oriental painting during university, and have been consistently interested in traditional ink landscape paintings, I naturally began to produce work about Korean mountains as my subject matter. Recently I mostly explore the Seorak Mountain in my work. This is to rediscover the hidden aesthetic value of the mountain, which had been traditionally overshadowed by the reputation of the GeumgangMountain, and to reinterpret ‘Jin-GyeongSansu’ (Traditional landscape painting of real scenery) in a contemporary way. After contemplating on how to create the contemporary ink landscape painting, I tried printing the work on Hanji in order to maximize the picturesque expression of the photograph and revive the texture of the Hanji – using photography as the medium, which imbues reality and the trend of the time.  

My photographic relief, which I coincidentally discovered, imbued my emotions and vital energy in the impromptu process of touching and crumpling the photograph. The act of crumpling the completed photograph can be basically read as damaging the essence of photography, and yet it,simultaneously attempts to expand the field of photography as a paradoxical construction through destruction. The peculiar shading variation – a three-dimensional effect – and the real space and figures within the photograph lead us to another imaginative world. Ultimately through my most recent relief works, I intent to suggest ‘the aesthetics of crumpling’ which exists in a gap between photography and painting, the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional, and illusion and reality.

LIM ChaeWook
Born in 1970, Seongju, Korea

EDUCATION
2002    B.F.A, Department of Oriental Paintings College of Fine Arts,
              Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITION
2014    Inside Mountains Araart, Seoul, Korea
2013    Mt. Inwang_Snow Mountains, Seochonjae, Seoul, Korea
              Snow Mountains, Shin Hwa Gallery, Hong Kong, China
2012    Mind Spectrum, Schema Art Museum, Cheongju, Korea
              The Mountains, Shin Hwa Gallery, Hong Kong, China
              Mind Spectrum, Pyo Gallery Artspace, Seoul, Korea
2010    Mind Spectrum, Shin Hwa Gallery, Hong Kong, China
              Wolcheon-ri Solsum, Gallery Won, Seoul, Korea
2009    Mind Spectrum, Chung Art Gallery, Seoul, Korea
              Mind Spectrum, Hana Art Gallery, Seoul, Korea

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITION
2014    The joy of painting, Hanwon Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea
              Prudential Eye Awards: Supporting emerging Asian art,
              Suntec City, Singapore
2012    SCAF(Seoul Contemporary Art star Festival),
              Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, Korea
              Residence 2012- Environment art exhibition,
              Masan Art Center, Changwon, Korea
              ArtRoad77-4th, Book House Art Space, Paju, Gyunggido, Korea
2011    Korea Art Today ‘Breathe’, Hong Kong Arts Centre, ,
              Hong Kong, China,
              KCAF 2011, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul Korea2010 Art Garden,
              Gallery Su, Seoul, Korea
2010    ArtRoad77-2th, Gallery Hangil, Paju, Gyunggido, Korea
              KCAF 2010, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul Korea, Korea
              Life is life, Namsong Museum, Gapyung, Gyunggido, Korea