Chun, Kwang-Young: AGGREGATIONS - Recent Works (Sydney)    Oct 12 - Nov 23, 2011

Conny Dietzschold Gallery is very pleased to announce a major solo exhibition by the Korean artist Chun, Kwang-Young. This is Chun’s fourth solo exhibition in Australia and will include a number of his acclaimed Aggregation pieces.

Chun’s work is immediately recognizable and lends itself to endless scrutiny. The artist folds Korean mulberry paper covered with Chinese language characters on small polystyrene forms, and then combines them on a board where he creates a surface of large scale hybrids of sculpture, printmaking, and painting called Aggregations. The text sometimes includes well wishes for the viewer. The works alternately undulate, bristle, erupt or appear flat and puzzle-like. Their large scale makes the presence of the pieces magnetic and absorbing, as their surface and texture elicit close observation. As the viewer approaches a work, it becomes progressively a threedimensional field, an accumulation of forms and an endless litany of text.

Inspired by childhood memories of how herbal medicines were kept in small sacks and hung from the ceiling, wrapped in mulberry paper and tied with string made of the same material, the wrapped triangles in Chun’s construction resemble tradition and his contemporary expression. Chun is orchestrating thousands of units to produce variations of surface texture and composition and speak on many levels and on universal terms. Chun’s work, characterized by an apparent minimalism from a distance and marked by an incredible intricacy up close, has strong affinities with 20th and early 21st century artistic practice. The world’s finest mulberry paper is made in Korea from the pulp of the mulberry tree, and its use extends far beyond the medicinal.