작업 소개

57STUDIO는 국립현대미술관의 전시 프로그램인 ‘젊은모색2019’ 전시의 미디어 콘텐츠로 아티스트 인터뷰 시리즈를 기획 및 제작하였습니다. 이번 전시의 부제인 ‘액체 유리 바다’는 서로 다른 주제와 매체를 각자의 개성으로 다루는 참여 작가 9명에게서 발견한 공통의 키워드에서 출발하였습니다. 인터뷰 시리즈는 각 작가의 작품 세계와 전시 취지를 효과적으로 전달하기 위해 제작되었으며, 작가들의 창작 과정, 작업에 대한 생각, 그리고 전시에 대한 개인적인 관점을 담아 관람객들이 전시에 대한 이해와 몰입도를 높일 수 있도록 구성되었습니다.

황수연 작가는 자신의 주변에서 발견한 재료들을 오랜 시간 동안 바라보고 자신이 만져보고 두드려보고 소화시킨 다음에서야 조각으로 만들어내는 작가입니다. 그리고 한 작품을 만드는 과정과 그 시간이 작가에게 굉장히 중요한데요. 이번 전시에서는 전시와 공간에 맞는 다양한 조각 군들을 종이 등으로 만들어냈습니다. 우리는 이런 황수연 작가의 조각을 통해 고정되어 있는 조각의 모습이 아닌 시간과 장소와 흐름에 따라 계속해서 변화하는 조각의 다양한 모습을 보실 수 있습니다.

– 최희승 큐레이터

57STUDIO planned and produced an artist interview series as part of the media content for the Young Korean Artists2019, a program by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. The exhibition’s subtitle, Liquid, Glass, Sea, was inspired by a common keyword discovered across the nine participating artists, who each approach different themes and media with their own unique perspectives. The interview series was created to effectively communicate each artist’s artistic world and the exhibition’s intent. It captures the artists’ creative processes, their thoughts on their work, and their personal views on the exhibition, helping viewers deepen their understanding and engagement with the exhibition.

Hwang Sueyon is an artist who takes great care in observing, touching, and absorbing the materials she discovers in her surroundings over a long period of time before transforming them into sculptures. The process and time involved in creating a single work are extremely important to her. In this exhibition, she has created a variety of sculptural pieces using materials like paper, tailored to fit the exhibition space. Through Hwang Soo-yeon’s sculptures, we can experience not the fixed form of sculpture, but rather its continuous transformation, changing with time, place, and flow.

– Choi Heeseung (Curator)

Hello, my name is Hwang Sueyon. I work with the idea of living with the body. For me, the variability of time is very important in my work. My early work focused on eliciting the potential form from materials with no specific form.

It’s about the phenomenon of the encounter between matter and my body. For example, I would fill a sheet of paper black with pencil lead, or keep pounding at thin aluminum foil until it converges into a lump to revert it back to a lump of aluminum. Or I’d cut rubber bands into very small strips. These works rendered such gestures meaningless between the practical or impractical, and enabled one to inhabit another body. My idea of the three-dimensional entails how certain lumps come and live together in this world. I’ve used the metaphor of how the physical body brushes shoulders with the physical world, and the ensuing phenomena thereof.

Being so conscious about the body I wanted to make the body myself. I once studied how to make clothes at a workshop, and saw curved rulers for cutting fabric. The ruler contained markings best suited for sketching out the lines across the back, buttocks, and armpits. I drew the lines together to create the body.

I used to think such materiality must come from the very physical pressure of my hand. But now it all comes from the patterns I’ve accumulated. Once I draw a pattern, the same applies to the next pattern. I thus end up with similar iterations, even for a circle like this.There are lots of patterns similar to this. For me, this sort of data is a new type of material. I use this data and forms again to create beings of nature, fauna, and flora. This is because I’ve been interested in biology and subconsciously recalled creatures that I can relate to as I created the body based on these forms.

They may be paper statues that can be built on endlessly, or things on which the head and body can flip flexibly. This is because putting together everything at once was not a feasible option for me. They had to be moved around, or even spread out for storage. For me, the body isn’t just the “human body”. Rather, it’s a lump in various forms. Internalized spaces come out forward and curve backwards, and creating such internal spaces makes me feel lost at times.

I often talk about creating while also destroying my sculptures. The paper sculptures have very sculptural postures, but they’re set so that they can barely support themselves. They’re in the gradual process of destruction, which is also reflective of my own life since when I was young. I just hope that audiences have a pleasant experience with my work, and are able to read the strangeness and sense of touch in the works.