Seo Mira

Seo Mira is having a solo exhibition titled 'Exploring on New Paper' at Riverside Gallery from May 6th to 23rd. A preview will take place on Monday, May 6th, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Seo makes paintings that are often overlayed or quilted together and involve memory, feelings, and subconscious and repetitive markmaking akin to meditation. She uses materials such as Korean traditional rice paper, fabrics, and paintings on top of paintings, creating intricate and multi-dimensional visual poetry. The repetition of marks with paint is reminiscent of writing or inscription with the intention of writing removed. What results is a meditative exercise of automatic and subconscious movements that results in a text-like arrangement of marks. The artist often overlays the composition with bigger brush strokes or collaged elements that convey dynamic movement and a sense of place or the readability with a central point, unlike some of the Abstract Expressionist paintings that continued on infinitely off the edges of the canvas and refused the idea of a center. The vertical dimensions of some of the quilted or collaged paintings are reminiscent of ancient or traditional Korean painting scrolls, which means that the artist is placing a painting within a painting within a painting as a continued metaphor for reality and illusion as a multi-layered mechanism or space.

Bio:

Seo Mira was born in Gwangju, Korea and earned her MFA from Cheonnam National University. She is a practicing painter and has received numerous recognitions for her work. In 2011, she was awarded the Grand Prize of the 13th Shinsegae Art Award, followed by the 12th Oh Jiho Art Award in 2013. Recently, Seo was invited by the "AHL Foundation's program: Art in the Workplace" in collaboration with the Bank of Hope in New York. She was also selected for the Beijing Art Residency organized by the Gwangju Museum of Art. Seo has had solo exhibitions such as "Seep into Jade" at Yangnim Art Museum (2023) and "Trace of Presence and Absence" at the Korean Community Center in N.J. (2022). She regularly exhibits her work in Gwangju, Seoul, Beijing, and New York.

Statement:

The act of dotting in the artwork is, in fact, a process of freeing oneself from the desire to consciously express something by simply focusing on the pure act itself. Unlike the expression of brushstrokes, which often carry the weight of intention, repetitive dotting carries its own inherent meaning. In my daily routine, I spend considerable time filling in dots on paper through repetitive actions for quite a few hours. And as I repeat the process of adding another trace upon them, it feels like a performance of meditation. On one hand, everything created in this process feels like the quiet breath on the canvas. Recent dotting feels the most monotonous and serene compared to my previous works. I think that calmness gives me comfort. It allows me to detach from efforts to control or understand myself and immerse myself in the pure experience of creation. The process of creating a work is like unfolding a new piece of paper, interacting with my inner self, and following a creative path.

Additional Materials:

Review by Robert C. Morgan

Review in Korean

NJ Stage

Korea Times