Special Exhibition: Chasing Passion

- Title : Chasing Passion
- Date : May 2 - May 17, 2019
- Opening Reception : Thursday, May 2, 2019 at 7:00pm
- Place : Korean Cultural Center Los Angeles Art Gallery (2nd Floor) 5505 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90036
- Artists : Hyesook Park, David B. Jang
- Opening Reception Reservation : www.kccla.org/english/programs_reservation.asp
- Present : Korean Cultural Center LA
- More Information : Tammy Cho, KCCLA at 323-936-3014

The Korean Cultural Center Los Angeles proudly presents the special exhibition "Chasing Passion" which will take place from May 2nd to the 17th at the Korean Cultural Center Art Gallery, located at 5505 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90036.

At this exhibition, two artists, Heysook Park & David B. Jang will tell their stories through their artwork. They are known as the "Passionate Artists" among critics. One artist paints life stories through bold brushstrokes which shows not only creative work but also passion that's embedded in life. The other artist says that art is all about survival, or in other words, life tactics. He continues to make beautiful art by utilizing and recreating abandoned items and brings them to life.

▶ Hyesook Park
Hyesook Park's work has been shown widely in Los Angeles and Korea for the past thirty years. Her work ranges from the earlier colorful figuration with hints of narrative and symbolism to her recent abstractions, monochrome fields marked by scratches, drips, abrasions and bits of collage.

She was recognized for her large expressionistic canvases fairly early in her career, but she struggled financially as an artist and immigrant. To make this situation even worse, a fire destroyed her studio, engulfing twenty years of her artwork. However, she didn’t find this loss devastating, and instead she found it to be liberating: it cleared space for new work. Park began experimenting with metallic gray diluted sumi ink brushed over gessoed and modeling paste. The resulting symmetrical forms and white emerging from a dark matrix, suggest nocturnal landscapes and seascapes while remaining in clearly physicalized gestures.

She mentions that "Through painting, I search for or create space that I find reflected in Asian and Western art traditions," she says. "I am looking for depth of space represented on a flat surface. This depth of space goes beyond three dimensions to depict a personal cosmology. The content of my work is derived from political events, the history of painting, and personal experience."

▶ David B. Jang
Both an artist and an inventor, David B. Jang is known for his imaginative kinetic installations, which employ hacked consumer electronics and subverted household appliances. David B. Jang has exhibited both nationally and internationally at museums and galleries, including: The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Laguna Art Museum; Museum of Art and History; Torrance Art Museum; Los Angeles International Airport; Nagasaki Museum of Fine Art, Japan; Paju Kyoha Art Center, Korea.

His work is about survival, or what he calls "life tactic." For him, survival requires the transformation and maintenance of continuous order, and order mean harnessing energy. But because energy and matter cannot be destroyed, only transformed, his works engage in this reality by maintaining a constant state of motion, transforming and transferring themselves over time. The task of his work is to produce line and mass in various states - a process in which the work is never realized in its final form, but just like our body, is only continuously progressing. Requiring the continuous transfer of energy, these ordering systems will almost always be found in the state of maximum disorder, or will move towards it. 'Meaning' is possible by creating order against the law of entropy. He is interested in things that can set in a mode of constant production and form-making, thus, ordering, and therefore in a constant state of 'meaning creation'. This meaning generation is connected to the human compulsion to produce forms which are connected to the technological system of production that we have set into motion. The behavior of technological systems of production are random and opportunistic, just like the behavior of humans. These objects we are interacting with us every day, causing us to become remote from the physical interaction with reality.

He is constantly seeking self-organizing systems known as autocatakinetics. The material of his artworks and operations and activities function as morphemes, that is, as the grammar of a sociological language. He sees industrial society operating as a living organism, because it is combined with the treatment of organic life forms within from our existence.

The exhibition is open to the public and the opening reception will be held on Thursday, May 2nd, 2019 at 7:00p.m. at the KCCLA 2nd floor art gallery. If you are interested in attending the opening ceremony or for more information, please RSVP at www.kccla.org or call 323-936-3014.