The Cycle of Life and Death
Everything in a painting is created in space and time and placed amid them. For example, if a painting is something that is created on a rectangular canvas, the time that it was painted is accumulated in the layers of paint that create a space on the plane of the canvas, which could be called a universe. And a new dimension is created accordingly.
I met Cho Gwi Ok at ‘Gallery Kitanozaka’ in Kobe, an artist who boldly engages in the expression of new space and time arising from the intersection of color and penmanship.
Cho Gwi Ok creates a four-dimensional world of wildflowers in her imagination by painting them with a novel technique.
The very first thing that came to my mind was photosynthesis. Plants are involved in all aspects of human life—clothing, food, and shelter, and they provide the oxygen we need to breathe. I wonder if we take for granted the plants that support life on Earth but don’t move much and don’t speak while they are found everywhere.
The mixed media piece, titled <Wildflowers Inside of Me>, which was started last year and completed this year, is about wildflowers grown in Cho Gwi Ok’s mind. Each one of the wildflowers was given a robust sense of life by the artist, who used a knife to build up the layers of paint.
Gazing at the myriad flowers growing in the green meadow Cho Gwi Ok created, I can sense her compassion for nature and see the overlap of plants and human life.
The cycle of life and death in the natural world has continued since the beginning of time. In each work, the idea of reincarnation is seen, and I can sense a psychological depth to the idea that the cycle of life continues indefinitely. To me, it seemed like a projection of Cho Gwi Ok’s thinking, who was asking herself ‘what it means to live as a human being’ by embodying the wildflowers of the heart.
In particular, in the three works of <Wildflowers Inside of Me> created in 2023, Cho thickly painted wildflowers in the middle of the canvas to the bottom against a vivid green backdrop. The paintings reminded me of the tremendous energy generated at the moment of flowers blooming. I was drawn to the intense painting applied by hard knives that seemed to bake the inner image through Cho Gwi Ok’s filter.
I conjecture that the wildflowers painted by Cho Gwi Ok are the artist’s mental space as well as the appearance of the clash between the ideal and emotion on the surface. Or perhaps they may be a powerful and delicate moment created by an internal image of the seeming clash between coldness and passion.
Furthermore, if you look more closely, you can see that a separate layer of paint is being applied to the canvas before the oil dries. I see this process as an embodiment of the fluctuations of emotions that pass through the conscious and unconscious mind.
Regardless of what it is, I am reminded of Cho Gwi Ok’s production attitude. She creates works by painting the landscape of the mind through contemplating on the relationship between herself and nature or both and by moving her mind and body.
In other words, I don’t think Cho Gwi Ok is making art for herself. Rather, I believe she exists for the sake of her art, to get it out into the world, as an artist.
For me personally, it was an unforgettable moment to encounter the group of works titled “Wildflowers as Guides in Space and Time”. In these works, Cho Gwi Ok’s inner force of composition created the Matiere, creating a psychological depth. They reflect her attitude when confronting the material called paint.