Unchangeable Belief and Essence of the Land

At the center of Artist Jung, Chul ’s series ‘The land what i want to believe in’

Unchangeable belief and essence of the land

A dull, powerful brushstroke scans fragments of time. Shadows of memory floating on paintings wake up from the existing time that sunk with polite silence and at last walk one by one. The artist takes a breath slowly and makes it in his own modeling from a mix of everything summoned. Formless blank space, Freely wriggled line, and eternal togetherness of space and time rush toward the world of essence without needing explanation or understanding.

In the artist Jung, Chul’s series titled, “The Land That I Want To Believe In,” the ‘belief about the land’ is revealed. Belief is another word for essence, root, basis, and origin, as well as seeking and hoping, and unchanging grace and faith are the the prototype of aesthetic cultivation. Furthermore, the things that are made as metaphor of the sustenance and injury of life, as well as loneliness, romantic feeling, longing, etc. are the motives that cultivate the “The Land That I Want To Believe In.” Using this as a foundation, Jung unfolds stories about nature and living, having maintained a pure and well balanced state.

The artist shows with density the belief about the land’s pureness and the difference of depth by planting the self’s nature that is wiggling with vitality and the interrelationship of human’s existence a narration of the individual as a formative element without unnecessity. Although the series titled, “In front of the Tomb,” (1) which he drew as he reminisced the moment the thirsty longing becomes a longing with a sensation of burning neck, as well as his “Mountain” series and “The Land That I Want To Believe In” (2) series are essays that collected up the artist’s eye and mind, in his inner side a sketch about life and death is there in melted form, and it carries a truthful autobiographical position containing absence and existence, and lack and satisfaction.

They compare favorably even as a of expression that continuously catches his heart and mind for 20 years and onwards.

In the midst of all this “The Land That I Want To Believe In” is ‘the nature’s essence and mother. That is so big and deep that it cannot hide from anything and is a lonely wound that cannot dare to express with words or through language” (from the artist statement). Although that origin is laid with the existence called parent and the resulting various private layers, but it does not appoint a shared impossibility. Rather, this layer becomes the beginning that can summon the reason of the other by re-interpreting the fluidity of the artist’s psychology. This was a kind of emulation. Emulation and mimesis based in the ideas of aesthetics and philosophy are different. To Jung, emulation is close to the throwing up completely new things with reality as a substructure. In other words, emulation is a vector that penetrate the past and present, and at the same time it is a stage where a world of unreality is cast and an axle that sparks off the situation of synesthesia that transcends the visible evocation. Interpreted in a different way this is the ‘Time of the Concealed Memory,’ and it is the land of uncomfortable belief and essence, and symbol that shows a sense of distance between reality and unreality and the goal of segmentation. Of course to Jung land is an emblem of an outlook on nature emphasizing the meaning of the artist’s self and existence on the basis of the raunch and fertile mystique; it is the source of modeling; and it is the place of timeless immersion as artist. However the side point that is melted within

The deep and wide reason and the world of philosophy exist to substitute what is beyond what can be understood as the visual intelligibility or concepts, and they are equivalent to comprehension and perception, construction and dissolution , and evocation and summoning.

Especially as one can read in recent works his “The Land That I Want To Believe In” series escapes contemplation and now includes the beyond. (3)

This comes into view like a buoy below the representational system, which is not artificial, and connects the space of reality and space of painting between Jung’s unique painting style and topic.

Being added to the end of individually accepted interpretation is an impression that can easily be felt without explanation, even in connoting the self’s narrative to purely leave as a portion of the audience in one hand.

His “The Land That I Want To Believe In” is an extension of Jung’s life, which he has lived without ever forgetting once, as it is the evocation and summoning that confirms his existence.

The traces that exchanged the weights of the things that exist and disappear at the end of this extension, and things that are witnessed and implicit are melted, having erased the boundary between reality and unreality.

This shows the calm connection and portrait of carved thinking, created through the essence of existence showing comprehensive connection, fragments of life, and method of change within the bosom of time, and in the midst of all this, shows the evocation that cannot be arrived at without comprehension about existence. Interestingly this evocation is passed onto the other in an intact manner.

The end of transfer manifests as a lyrical feeling. The drawing with line without correction, the clean form and calm colors, and the flow of line that the impulsive and sentimental freedom made tender are the basis that allows one to feel the artist’s unique senses. However, the manifestation of the lyrical feeling are cultivated more strongly from the nuance of delicate atmosphere, the expression of the land that exchanges moistness and aridness, and form that can be barely discerned and the beauty of the negative space.

Of course, longing and sadness, solitude and joy, despair and delight, nobleness and cheerfulness, heaviness and lightness, restriction and liberation, silence and screaming, and so on are located within this cultivated land as seeds, and activates as the condition of heavy inspiration as if solemn, and the lyrical element.

Perfectly these elements slowly and with order construct the principle of modeling and become the language of Jung, Chul. Even if it is the same solid color, and even if it is seen from the perspective of abstract expressionism, the realization that it cannot be same is here. Moreover, the narration that does not exclude Jung’s common, theoretical and emotional context is the chief algorithm rejecting homogeneity. This is because it is a steadfast blame in that the artwork basically to him is a tool of recording that delivers to the world his own laws and principles (4) that he experienced, contemplated, and realized, to any extent.

It is only that the remaining visual check that is partial to the atypical composition that is found in his work, the order that is not institutional and without things to go through, and the dynamics that is fickle as it is experimental and therefore wriggling in a highly sensuous manner is difficult for us.

Unlike the other series that have high perceptivity, there is also the limitation of having to accept it as sensibility and not reason.

In other words, by mixing with the surrounding space and stepping on the sequence communicating with time, his works that begin from the impulsive and momentary inspiration are very far from the portrayal that produces the form of the object exactly as it is like a classical painting or sculpture, and methods similar to this. (5)

Even so, Jung, Chul’s “The Land That I Want To Believe In” is continued as an aesthetic veiling of the object due to the energy that coils time and space, the single trace of a brush having traveled, one side of a flow, a piece of memory, also the small shakiness that the image produced from him, and others, and therefore even though it is visual art it has the quality of not being limited by the categories of vision.

It is as if ,by harvesting the fragments of time that were individually split countless number of times one by one, the condition repeating as if condensation and spread are violently changing is a point that one can meet in his painting.

Moreover, in the gaps between condensation and spread, the contact metamorphism created as the accumulated energy become individual waves guarantee the artist’s originality and does not lack anything as his individual characteristics.

The “In Front of the Tomb” series that was announced after 1993 when he opened his first solo exhibition is a body of work that served the daily life that became extreme with the ‘the thirsty longing as longing burning the neck,’ below the reflux of memory. [from the 2016 essay by Hong, Kyung-han]
It is possible to conclude “The Land That I Want To Believe In” and “Mountain” series that the artist worked on from the early 2000s as works that link the essence of earth and the dignity of immense nature that were indeed contained in the artist’s mind. However, the nature of here is not the realistic nature but is a symbol substituting the absent existence and a sign of lack. “The Land That I Want To Believe In” and “Mountain” series are quite different from the aspect of modeling type. Although the former is strong in relatively abstract, metaphorical lingering imagery, the latter is close to representational affiliation as it specifically adds the shape of mountain and flow of water, as well as person’s appearance. Also, even as the crystal that unties thick longing and loneliness catches the eye, as wriggling through adjustment and omission is impressive in the former, calmness and the every day are dominating in the latter. The difference is big even in the main use of colors and expression. If “The Land That I Want To Believe In” is completed with the monochromatic palette below the emotions that are difficult to press due to being generally powerful and sudden, “Mountain” exhibits relatively diverse color and portrayal. Especially while “The Land That I Want To Believe In” is free in its choice of materials, “Mountain” series shows the uniform difference from the point of reality that he conceptually interpreted using only his own methods.
In this aspect, the another valuable thing is in the experimental attitude and the journey of that construction adding the act (drawing / the act in the moment of drawing) to the providence of art that can be called abstract, and using process of progress in moving the providence as aesthetical object that specifies the role.
Philosophy is a world in which nothing yet is everything, with the thing that one sees, with the thing that is not seen despite seeing, with things existing but not existing, and with things not existing but existing. This is the thing in the center of his core language forming his art, and this language contains nothing yet exists under the statement embracing everything.
As Jung, Chul’s painting is not a representation of a specific object, it is often the case that it is difficult ‘to read.’

Writing by KyungHan Hong