최명영 화백(Artist Choi Myoung Young)<사진:권동철>
[2019년]Dansaekhwa:abstract paintings of Korea Artist CHOI MYOUNG YOUNG-Ⅰ‥Conditional Planes
Most people create texts mainly through the methods of reading and writing. Choi Myoung Young, however, uses the origins of language, which are commo
n among all civilization, as his method of communication. He seeks a language that is not subordinate to a particular tribe or nation, but traverses diverse cultures and territories.
For example, he conveys the intimate and personal stories of human beings e.g. the past and future stories of individuals or communities, and myths, which are hardly visible or recordable, thereby reviving the ‘language of the body.’
This practice has not been a natural pursuit of the visual arts. Nevertheless, employing this method – creating a visual outcome through the language of limited visibility–has resulted in a richer out-come that no one had expected. It introduced an extraordinary narrative to contemporary art by bearing witness to the secretive aspects of human beings and revealing them along with pre-historic stories.
Choi opened a new world of decoding, a form of communication that is much more difficult than conventional methods–sending/receiving messages or interpreting an inscription of an epitaph–and, as a result, changed the way we look at the world.
He acknowledges the power of letters as a medium of language. In his work, however, he presents a ‘bodily dream’ through his skilled strokes with the notion that the making of art is a process of self-mortification that carries one into a deep religious state. It is almost similar to the practice of Buddhist monks of old who would reach this state by writing every word from the Buddhist scripture by hand.
△Kim Yongdae(김용대)/Independent Curator, the former director of the Daegu Museum of Art
△권동철 미술칼럼니스트/이코노믹리뷰 2020년 1월10일