New
York, NY - Gallery 49 is pleased to present the first solo
exhibition with the gallery of Korean artist Lim Eun Soon, opening
on July 15, 2004. Entitled "Traces of Memory", the exhibition
includes Lim's most recent oil and mixed media paintings exploring
the viable relationship between reality, human body and memory.
What Lim Eun Soon is constantly seeking to capture in her work is
the degree in which movement, whether attained through spontaneous
gesture or through deeply pondered expanses of modulated color, provides
a record of time passage. She finds this interrelationship in live
performance, most often in traditional and contemporary dance. Whereas
Western ballet seeks an exterior beauty of form through a rigidly
controlled elaboration of technique, the Korean dance attempts to
represent the interior aestheticism of the spirit through subtle restraint.
In all of her work, Lim treats the body as something mysterious, timeless
and unknown rather than something entirely familiar. Described by
art historian Kwang-Myung Kim as "a resurrection of the invisible
things left on the fringe of memory", Lim's paintings capture
the introverted character of Korean dance. The dancer may either move
or just stand still, for the spiritual exaltation is, indeed, the
ultimate aim of the Korean dance art.
A subgroup of works relate to landscape and the environment. Often
lyrical in tone, these compositions depicting mountain views, cock
fights or boats lined up on a pier, seem to recover something of a
spiritual space where the purified consciousness is freed from the
troubled world of matter. In their
themes, delicate colors, forms and patterns, these renderings provide
a feminine perspective of the external world. At the same time, Lim's
paint handling reveals a raw power more comparable to Western Expressionism
than to the traditional Asian landscape.
Lim
Eun Soon lives and works in Gwangju Korea, currently teaching at Ho
Nam University. Since 1983, her work has been exhibited in galleries
in US, Mexico, Austria, Germany and Japan, as well as at The Museum
of Contemporary Art, Seoul and at the Gwangju Biennale.
Lim Eun Soon's exhibition will be on display from July 15 through
August 17, 2004. A reception for the artist will be held on Thursday,
July 15 from 6 to 8 PM.
Gallery@49 is located at 322 West 49th Street (between 8th and 9th
Avenues). Gallery Hours are Tuesday - Saturday 12- 6 pm. For additional
information or visual material please contact the gallery at (212)
767-0855 or e-mail: info@gallery49.com
