‘스케치 (Sketch), 완성을 위한 미완 혹은 미완의 완성’ 展을 열며 …

양옥금 (갤러리 드맹 큐레이터)

2004. 9. 17~2004. 10. 4, 갤러리 드맹
 
텅 빈 캔버스 또는 흰 사각 화면의 종이 앞에 처음 무엇인가를 그려내고 또 창작하려는 예술가들은 어떤 마음으로 그것들을 대할까? 무수한 상념의 편린들을 머릿속에 담고 처음 컴퓨터 화면위 가상의 백지에 명멸하는 커서를 바라보며 글을 쓰는 작가들은 또 어떨까? 스케치 (Sketch)의 사전적 의미는 희미하고 구체적이지 않은 드로잉이나 회화를 의미하며, 흔히 어떤 것의 기초적인 탐구나 간단하고 일반적인 발표의 기본안 등을 뜻하기도 한다. 이런 사전적 의미를 내포하는 스케치는 특히 시각 예술에 있어서 단순히 스케치로써 하나의 작품이 되기도 하지만 많은 경우 단순히 보여지는 것보다 더 함축적인 것을 내포함과 동시에 창작의 과정에서 ‘완성’을 위한 하나의 ‘단계’이며 ‘모색’일 경우가 많다. 이런 의미에서 작가가 스케치를 통해 완성될 작품을 그려 볼 때 스케치라는 과정은 작가에게 하나의 ‘창작의 기쁨과 고통’이 됨과 동시에 피할 수 없는 ‘과정’이 된다. 때문에 거의 모든 예술 장르에서 창작의 가장 기초가 된다는 ‘스케치’라는 것과 그 과정은 이 말이 갖는 어감(語感) 만큼 단순하지만은 않으리라.

…중략…

작가 이 경은 인터넷이라는 가상의 공간 (cyber space)을 매개로하여 실존의 공간을 꿈꾸고 인간 부재(不在)의 풍경화를 포토샵, 디지털 프린트(digital print)라는 방법으로 작품을 만들어 낸다. 그 부재의 풍경을 통해 작가는 이 세상에존재하는 색채의 기록이나 조합을 전달하고자 하는 것이 아니라 그 색채의 조합 전체가 가질 수 있는 느낌들, 형용할수 없는 감정들을 전달하고자 한다.

단순화되고 미니멀에 가까운 색채의 조합만이 남은 이 경 작업의 화면안에는 인터넷을 통해 간접적으로 바라본 곳들, 그녀가 가보지 못한 사하라의 오랜지빛 태양이 있고, 북극의 오로라가 있고, 액상 프로방스의 라벤더 들판이 있다. 또한 이 경의 작품속에는 이러한 작가가 직접 가보지는 못했으나 실존하는 공간 뿐만 아니라 작가의 기억속에 또렷하게 각인된 지난 8여년간의 독일 유학 생활을 통해 남겨진 브라운슈바익의 풍경들이 이제는 물리적으로 먼 곳에 있으나 작가의 기억속에 또렷히 각인된 이미지가 그나마의 시간의 먼지를 쓴 채 존재한다.

이러한 풍경들은 공통적으로 디지털과 포토샵이라는 도구(tool)로 반복, 통합된 조작, 변형, 단순화 등의 필터를 통해 재구성되는 이미지로, 3차원의 공간이 배제되고 평면화되면서 물질성이 배제되는 가상의 이미지로 평면의 화면에 담겨져 있다.

2006 © 양옥금

‘Sketch: Incompletion for Completion or Completion of Incompletion’
Yang Ok-geum (Curator, Gallery de Main)

September 17-October 4, 2004, Gallery de Main

What state of mind do artists face an empty canvas or white rectangular paper when they first attempt to draw something and create? What about writers who carry countless fragments of thoughts in their heads and write while watching the blinking cursor on a virtual blank page on a computer screen? The dictionary definition of sketch refers to a vague and non-specific drawing or painting, and often means a basic exploration of something or a basic plan for a simple and general presentation. A sketch containing this dictionary meaning, especially in visual arts, can simply be a work in itself as a sketch, but in many cases it contains more implicit meanings than simply what is shown, and is often a ‘stage’ and ‘exploration’ for ‘completion’ in the creative process. In this sense, when an artist envisions the work to be completed through sketching, the process of sketching becomes both ‘the joy and pain of creation’ and an unavoidable ‘process’ for the artist. Therefore, ‘sketch,’ which is the most basic foundation of creation in almost all art genres, and its process would not be as simple as the nuance of this word suggests. …omitted…

Artist Kyong Lee dreams of existential space through the virtual space of the internet (cyber space) and creates landscapes absent of humans through the methods of Photoshop and digital print. Through this landscape of absence, the artist does not intend to convey records or combinations of colors that exist in this world, but rather to convey the feelings that the entire combination of colors can have, emotions that cannot be described.

Within the screen of Kyong Lee’s work, where only simplified, nearly minimal combinations of color remain, there are places viewed indirectly through the internet: the orange sun of the Sahara she has never visited, the aurora of the North Pole, and the lavender fields of Aix-en-Provence. Also, in Kyong Lee’s work exist not only such real spaces that the artist has not directly visited but also the landscapes of Braunschweig left through eight years of studying in Germany, clearly imprinted in the artist’s memory, which now exist physically far away but as images clearly etched in the artist’s memory, covered with the dust of time.

These landscapes are commonly images reconstructed through filters of repetition, integrated manipulation, transformation, and simplification using the tools of digital technology and Photoshop, contained on a flat screen as virtual images from which three-dimensional space is excluded and materiality is eliminated through flattening.

Related Picture