빗살무늬에 대한 추억: 8인의 선과 드로잉

Memories of comb patterns - lines and drawings of 8 people

writing. Park Young-taek (art critic, professor at Kyonggi University)

 

 

I saw comb pattern pottery at the museum. The person who molds the clay and carefully carves lines on its soft surface finally imprints his or her traces permanently. His time and his movements are remembered. The touch, the trembling of the hand, and the labor were naturally stored together with the flesh of the soil. The hand that drew the lines has rotted away and is no longer found anywhere in this world, but the lines he left have survived thousands of years and are being reincarnated before my eyes. I desperately seek the warmth of those hands, their vibrations, and their body odor. The lines carved on the surface of the pottery may have functioned as sunlight, the heartbeat, or unknown magical meaning. But now, the lines of the earthenware tempt imagination and daydreaming and make one ponder over a single line. The soft texture of the soil and the journey of the engraved lines, pushing against the soft resistance, come together to create rhythm and show balance and decoration. These lines, which embody the body's regular movements, make a certain sound. The sound has disappeared, but it remains hidden in silence, like a code waiting to be deciphered, although it cannot be heard. One simple line transformed a bowl into something else. Now, it ceases to be a simple vessel and comes across as flesh that contains everything about a person. In the surface of the bowl, someone still lives, making a heartbeat. Let’s think again about Zen’s life and the meaning of existence.

 

These eight people - Park Hyeon Jeong, Baek Ji Hee, Baek Jin Sook, Jinnie Seo, Yoon Hyang Ran, Lee Ki Young, Lee Seong Ah, and Lee Jeong Ah - show lines rising from their bodies on a flat canvas. Each of their lines is slightly different, and to the extent they are different, they testify to an individual world. Their lines are not subordinated to simple drawings or depictions of paintings. Perhaps it floats somewhere between the two. No, I dream of another life of goodness. Encountering the sensuous arrangement of lines that grow like plants from their bodies is something that can be accepted and passed through one's own sensitivity and understanding of painting, the body's play with materials, interpretation of space, and one's own body's nerves and reactions, as well as physical pathways. It is about smelling the body odor created by the traces of time. We encounter a deeply pressed and drawn line that is still at the core of a painting's existence as a painting, a line that condenses and entirely replaces everything about the artist.