Dot. Lines. Planes & Gloves by Chung Kyoung Yeon

Those countless successes and failures....., those numberless works which I couldn't display or couldn't have courage to exhibition....

As a human being, everything that happens to me can't be the same as that of the past. Especially as an artist, questions and attempts to understand the concept of art itself is endless.

Far form my intention, I came to be acknowledged as an artist of "gloves" and it is true that I have been attracted by the plain and humorous expression of the hands. I have, so far, kept my artistic interest in "gloves" and they mean much more than any other theme. My experimental works embodied from the moments of unbearable life with unselfishness and absentmindedness inevitably had to break away from fixed set of concept and consciousness. It has much to do with my pre-attempt concept of not wanting to make "a fixed unit of form by making them fused into the elements of pure visual plasticity.

It is well known that works of big scales and peculiar ones are not always good works. But in my first exhibition in 1981, it was, as far as I was concerned, an unavoidable necessity for me to enlarge my works to realize "creativity" contained in my works and in the materials themselves through various materials such as paper, string, bronze, gauge, textile. And in the exhibition of 1985, my motive "gloves" became longer by the size of some scores, or that of shorter sock, or wider like larger bags. I arranged the "gloves" in repetition absentmindedly or in total disarray, sometimes covered large barrels with them, and made accumulation works by overlapping thousands of gloves.

During those experimental works, gloves and the expressions of hands provide me with new dimensions transcending the fixed formality. I expressed, by dyeing the ends of glove fingers black and white, the simple logic of life, that is to say, every life begins with the dots, thus making lines and planes and finally a certain form. I did this in direct ways and sometimes in abstract ways to express the stories of my life or others.

I have also tried to express abstract ideals by extending the fingers in varied patterns, for example, like tails of animal and roots of plants.

My work is mainly a series of continuous dyeing, gluing, cutting, tearing. And in the each phase of my work, I was absorbed in planes and lines as well as in my work scales and wide use of various materials.

These days I try hard to conceal the fingers of gloves in my works. By doing this, there are lots of sewing required which result in disappearing of the fixed forms of gloves. It is mainly because of my artistic whim to be freed from formality. And the very whim enables me to understand other plastic beauty in the sense of my basic concept about art. The right to choose materials and images for work is, I should think, the only happiness and agony. The only solution to this agony depends not only on the artistic results of today but also on the incessant questions about art, thus making new starts for tomorrow.