Show runs through Sunday at Seoul's Kkumieum Forest Art Center
Feathers serve as motif to explore life and connection
Korean painter Cho Mi-young will open her solo exhibition "Feather Net: Where Wind Holds Life" on Wednesday at the Sangsang Toktok Art Museum inside the Kkumieum Forest Art Center in Gangbuk-gu, Seoul. The show runs through Sunday.
The exhibition uses feathers as a motif to explore the invisible relationships formed between humans and nature, individuals and society, and the self and others. Cho, who has long worked with the themes of feathers and life, presents the feather as both a trace of living things and a symbol of connection between different beings.
The works center on delicate line drawing rendered in traditional hanji and ink. Cho builds up countless fine, repeated strokes to capture the form of feathers and the movement of life, while the negative space between lines evokes the passage of wind and time.
The "net" in the exhibition title symbolizes the contradictory forces of connection and isolation in contemporary society. Cho draws on the structure of a spiderweb — which sways in the wind yet sustains life — to reflect on the meaning of relationships that bind different existences together.
The exhibition features not only flat paintings but also installation and video works. Visitors can move through the pieces and experience the spatial relationships that unfold across the entire gallery.
Cho completed a bachelor's and master's degree in Oriental painting at Hongik University and has also finished doctoral coursework there. She has held 21 solo exhibitions to date and currently teaches traditional Korean painting at Hongik University's College of Culture and Arts and at the National Museum of Korea.
yjc@heraldcorp.com
