Korea Week: Seung Hee Hong

Korea Week: Seung Hee Hong by Joanne Junga YangJanuary 21, 2016

©Seung Hee Hong

Seung Hee Hong was born in South Korea in 1979. She studied at Kaywon School of Art and Design, Photographic Art, South Korea, and then studied at Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Kuenste Stuttgart, Germany. She has had solo exhibitions and many group exhibitions in S. Korea, UK, and Germany. She won Bridege the gap / Nefs Masterpiece 2012 (South Korea). Her works have been publically collected by Seoul Museum of Art and National Hangeul Museum.

©Seung Hee Hong

Force to Depth

When a book is picked up from a table covered with dust, it leaves a trace of time, and had me recognize the presence of an object like a photogram. At the same time, it gives me an insight into its true nature and physical properties. The title and motif of my work Der Zwang zur Tiefe (Force to Depth) came from the short novel that Patrick Süskind wrote. The story is about a young female painter commits suicide as a critic told her work had no depth, and that she was unable to embody depth in her work.

From my work, depth can be interpreted in many ways. It has many variations: spatial depth, psychological depth, depth as a concept, depth as meaning, and visual depth. For me, depth is forced or coercive in space, staged by projecting emotion and memory onto objects. I raise an intentional gravity by depriving the solid physical characteristic of a wall or desk. Their sunken appearance, and creases, are thus represented as ‘a forced depth’, in a direct and tactile manner.

I think any daily object read as differently to different people. When you call the object, Chair as in chair, but the relationships between the chair and the space where it was, the time and relationships. Expressing feelings and emotions through objects are almost like watching our selves through them as well.

“Force to depth” is my art practice stared from 2007 until now. The choices of objects are mostly used in our daily life such as coffee mug or books that are surrounds us. The emotions that transplant on to objects are expressed as common feelings. For example, like the feelings that you have at the end of the day sink down to bed, feelings that you have after work you hung your cloth over the hanger, so those weight of the life expressed visibly.

If one stands up from a sofa, creases appear in it, but soon disappear. I represent situations of unintentional moments made by imagination that reflect everyday scenes. Black-and-white photographs are a medium to express situations from the past.