Parameters
October 24 to Noveber 23
Gallery Ho | New York, NY
Artists
Chang-ho Choi
Susanna Heller
John L. Moore
Hwa Chun Mun
Dates
October 24 to November 23, 2013
Opening Reception
Thursday, October 24, 2013
6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Location
Gallery HO
547 West 27th Street #208
New York, NY 10001
Landscapes from North America and Northern Korea
September 25, 2013, New York, NY – Gallery HO is pleased to announce the opening of a rare installation, Parameters – Landscapes from North America and Northern Korea, on October 24, 2013, from 6 – 8 pm. The exhibition will continue through November 23, 2013.
Parameters presents landscape paintings by four artists, Chang Ho Choi, Susanna Heller, John L. Moore and Hwa Chun Mun. The exhibition is an attempt to resist ideological biases toward North Korean art widespread in the mainstream media and scholarly investigations. It does not presume what art, especially contemporary art, should be, but offers an opportunity to simply experience art from North Korea and America. The exhibition is an experimental undertaking to see them together to understand different perceptions of art between the two regions — to critically revisit what is considered art, especially contemporary art, and what is considered art from North Korea.
Chang Ho Choi uses powerful brushwork creating energetic paintings of scenic landscape without outlines in a style that is called “Molgol,” which literally translates into “without frame” or “frame immersed in water.” This technique is said to be very hard to achieve in traditional Asian painting.
Susanna Heller is known for her expressionistic and evocative paint handling. Walking the fine line between representation (of the urban space) and (gestural) abstraction, her paintings visually communicate personal or collective experience of city life.
John L. Moore’s painting is abstract but also referential. He is interested in the built environment and our interactions with it, and how an urban landscape or a room interior can induce a psychological space. Moore’s study for East RD (1986) was inspired by his daily commute from Upper Manhattan to his studio in Brooklyn, when frequent drives along New York City’s East River Drive evoked thoughts about the Middle Passage.
Hwa Chun Mun’s gentle and elegant brushwork elaborates details of a landscape in contrast to the solid, decisive and pungenst brushwork of Chang Ho Choi. Nonetheless, Mun’s painting is no less imbued with vivid energy and dynamic movement than Choi’s that appears to pursue refreshing simplicity.
Although different, all four artists make a reference to the world in which they exist by expressing their inner reactions to it, each creating distinctive texture or brushwork with self-controlled gestures, applying colors with limited pallets, and composing the pictorial plane in the best possible balance. They all present individual ways of art making in which the creative author fully dominates the pictorial realm, defining the given surroundings in his or her subjective relationship to it. You are cordially invited to experience different forms in which the idea of subjectivity, the origin of abstraction, becomes materialized.
About the Artists
Choi, Chang Ho
Choi, Chang Ho (b. 1960, Onseong, North Hamgyong Province) graduated from the College of Fine Art at the Pyongyang National University and studied fine art in Russia. He was awarded nine gold medals at the annual National Art Exhibition in North Korea. He received the Grand Prix in Creativity at the 11th Beijing International Exhibition in 2008. He currently serves as the Chief of Korean Paintings Department at the Mansudae Art Studio.
Susanna Heller
Susanna Heller (b 1956, New York, NY) received her BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1977. She currently teaches at Purchase College in New York. She was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in 1988, the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1992, The Joan Mitchel Foundation Painters & Sculptures Grant Award in 2005 and others. Her works are in the collections of Art Gallery of Ontario,Museum London, Air Canada Corporation, Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa, ON; Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC; and others.
John L. Moore
John L. Moore (b. 1939, Cleveland, OH) received his BFA and MA from Kent State University. His solo exhibitions include the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, AL; Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, OH; the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning, Queens, NY; New England School of Art & Design, Suffolk University, Boston, MA; and other prestigious institutions around the country. He has been awarded a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant; The Cleveland Art Prize; a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship; and a Tesque Foundation Grant among others. His works are in collection of the Bronx Museum of Art, NY; the Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY; The Queens Museum, NY; the MIT List Visual Arts Center, MA; the Schomberg Center, NY; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH; New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ; and others.
Hwa Chun Mun
Mun, Hwa Chun (b. 1938, Yanji, Jilin Province, China), with a pen name “Byok Pa (Blue Waves),” graduated from the College of Fine Art at the Pyongyang National University, where he was also a faculty member. He had solo exhibitions in China in 1988 and 2007. He is known as a distinctive landscape painter while working at the Art Studio under the Ministry of Railways. He is a member of Songhwa Art Studio.
