“The evening star is the most beautiful of the stars not because of the proportion of its component parts but because it affords the eyes a joyous and pleasant brilliance.” 

Homilia in Hexaëm, II, 7., Basil of Caesarea

Today, painting has undergone significant evolution, embracing unconventional materials and intersecting with sculpture and installation. Gallery JJ is delighted to present Hyunjoo Park: PLANE OBJECT, an exhibition showcasing Park's distinctive painting methodology centered on light, pushing the boundaries of traditional painting. Park, who studied tempera and material techniques in Japan, continuously explores new realms of painting through visual illusions and planarity. The light in her works emanates not from technology but from meticulously polished gold leaves. Employing a gilt technique reminiscent of medieval icons, Park creates visual illusions that transcend the flat canvas, transforming into 'Plane Objects' that captivate museums and collectors alike.

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Her exploration of light culminates in a repetitive and systematic installation of uniform hexahedrons or geometric panel boxes on the wall. Named for its objectification of the painting’s surface, the plane object focuses on spatial expansion through the reflective properties of gold leaf. The interplay between visible and invisible elements, the collision of light and matter, and the ambiguity between materiality and non-materiality offer viewers a wondrous visual experience of light and color.

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This exhibition features her new planar works alongside the plane objects. The new works distill objects back into planes, segmented by diagonal lines that evoke light passing through a prism. While the light-infused lyricism of the plane objects softens compositional strictness, the two-dimensional works emphasize crisp lines in geometric abstraction. As internal and external lights intermingle, the plane objects evolve dynamically across different spaces and times, promising a nuanced spatial experience within the exhibition.

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The expanded realm of painting: Plane Object

Rectangular objects are regularly and repeatedly arrayed horizontally and vertically on the wall. Considering that the work is between painting and objects, we immediately evoke Donald Judd's informal objects; however, a closer examination reveals significant differences from the minimalist concept of industrial production, emphasizing immediacy and objectivity. In other words, Park’s work results from a time-consuming manual process of overlaying and polishing. It's crucial to grasp her methodology: she adeptly handles materials with a traditional painting spirit, faithfully reviving medieval Icon materials and gilt techniques. Thin gold leaves on each side of the object are meticulously polished to mirror-like perfection for maximum light reflection, while the front side is adorned with pale or robust colors.

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The visual impact of these colors enhances the overall character of painting. Above all, the reflection of light, resulting from the interplay between the protruding object and the golden light from its sides, extends into a newly created space. This visually unifies each object, suggesting an overarching figure and atmosphere. Various light illusions are generated depending on the viewpoint, ensuring a flattened spatial experience that transcends the properties of each part. As if Mark Rothko's colors have softened to a translucent mist, Park's work hovers before our eyes, blurring the distinctions between part and whole, and between plane and three-dimensional form. These plane objects extend the tradition of color-field painting, combining colors in their structured order.​

"Painting is a virtual one. It exists only for vision, and painting becomes a pure visual space. It is nothing but an illusion.” - The Problems of Art, Susanne K. Langer

Vision and Light: Between materiality and illusion

“Lucis naturahuiusmodi est, ut non in numero, non in mensura, non in pondere aut alio, sed omnis eius in aspectu gratia fit.”   Hexaëm, 147 v., Grosseteste

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An elegant light delicately emanates from within—it's a wondrous light where thin gold leaves are the sole emitter. Despite lacking electricity, it exudes a potent luminosity that harmonizes with each color unit to create illusory visual effects. In other words, reflected light and shadows interact, creating impressions in space, defining lines, heterogeneous spaces, and a rich variety of spaces. Unlike Dan Flavin's use of electric light to produce colored spaces, the plane objects harmoniously embody a romantic golden hue without such a power source. Park’s work metaphorically reflects life's aspiration for harmony amid contradictions and complexities.

Light creates a realm of ethereal beauty. According to the artist, 'an object loses its properties and transforms into an entirely different existence when illuminated,' akin to the radiant halos of medieval art or the sublime light of Gothic cathedrals. Rooted in the sacred luminosity of Tempera with a golden backdrop, her plane object seeks to evoke a meditative atmosphere through art.

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Juyeon Kang, Gallery JJ Director

edited by Brett Lee

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