Hoh Woo Jung: Score over Score

CHAPTER II 2021. 8. 5 - 9. 18

CHAPTER II YARD 2021. 10. 6 - 11. 13

Chapter II is pleased to announce Score over Score, a solo exhibition by Hoh Woo Jung, from 5th August to 18th September in Yeonnam-dong, Seoul. Being curated in relation to his activities at Chapter II Residency in 2019, the exhibition will introduce new achievements by Hoh Woo Jung who has consistently explored infinite possibilities and moderate variations found in the most fundamental combination of lines and faces. 

In order to understand Hoh’s practice and commitment to realize his own Pure Abstraction since his settlement in Korea, it is inevitable to examine his past works of the period in France. His early black and white figurative paintings portrayed mimetic words which looked like being transcribed and anonymous figures absorbed in ambiguous behaviors over timely and spatially unidentifiable backgrounds. The specific effect caused by the coexistence of emphasis and reduction on perspective reinforces a sense of speed and tension on the surface where two colors—blacks and white—mutually confront each other. It shows that Hoh treats the background as a staple part opposing the main images rather than a mere secondary element; in the depicted scenes, the figures are described as if they were either at a crossroad or in a desperate situation. Hoh’s storytelling about a bizarre cohabitation of instability, urgency, balance and imbalance detected in his created spaces where laws of physics oddly apply and features who dwell there consequently delivers anxiety, sentiments of emptiness and desolation which every single individual of the contemporary society often confronts. 

After the transition period when various forms or a see-saw shape contextually equivalent to certain characters and their psychological states frequently appeared, his latest works including the new series which will be introduced in this exhibition have a minimal composition consisting of only lines, curves and geometric figures on monochromatic surfaces. The lines, curves and geometric figures generate mobility over canvases depending on the intended distances among the shapes and their varied sizes; they eventually turn into movements and mutterings of small assemblages which arbitrarily drift and sometimes merge as occasion demands. From a critical viewpoint, Hoh Woo Jung’s empirical conclusion in which ontological incompleteness of presence is not an exclusive realm only figurative paintings can deal with ultimately allows each work to share coherency regardless of its periodical difference.  

The most noticeable aspect in this exhibition is Hoh’s progressive attempts in terms of employing colors. His new series reveals the transition from a neat orthogonal composition of lines and shapes dominating a layered bright monochrome color background seen in the previous works to unconstrained arrays of long color lines dividing a pastel tone background into multiple facets. The composition of multifarious angles and directions of black lines and figures on a white surface made movements and achieved Kandinsky style’s "illusion of color", whereas the emergence of color lines in the new series not only evokes a sense of temperature and an optical illusion but turns attention towards the depth and thickness of divided faces and mass from lines which were more emphasized before. Thus, the dominant-subordinate relationship defined as 'faces derived from the act of drawing lines' has steadily faded while the presence of colors enhances the hierarchy between separated faces.

Hoh Woo Jung (b.1987) completed National Post-graduated and Graduated Degrees (Diplôme national supérieur d'arts plastiques and Post-diplôme) at Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux‐Arts in Paris. His solo exhibitions have been presented by SongEun ArtCube (2020), Gallery Baton (2019) and Gallery Chosun (2018) and he has attended numerous group exhibitions at multiple leading art establishments including Doosan Gallery Seoul (2021), SeMA Nanji Residency (2020), Nam-Seoul Museum of Arts (2019) and Chapter II (2019). Also, being selected by several residencies such as Seoul Art Space Geumcheon, SeMA Nanji Residency, Chapter II and Cheongju Art Studio, he has a growing presence as one of the most promising emerging artists in the art scene.