I am interested in the invisible things, such as the unstable emotional currents in various relationships, and express them through experiments with the physical properties of painting.

 

We live in a world where it is inevitable that different people will meet and form relationships. But relationships are uncertain and unstable, causing hurt and anxiety. Nevertheless, humans are organically and unavoidably connected. I worked on this intertwined relationship through canvas and sewing to face and solve anxiety.

 

We need information to reduce uncertainty (knowing what we don't know), and we need energy to understand and embrace it. So I decided to apply this law to an object called a canvas.

By boldly revealing the back of the canvas, an unknown space that was not visible, I created a screen where the information from the front and back of the canvas (cloth) is mixed. By doing so, I expanded the universally recognized information of the canvas, and through the stitching that penetrates the front/back boundary, I tried to capture the thought process by dissolving the process of understanding and accepting it into the energy of action. In the process, the stitches become tangled and create unintended flows, and repeatedly demonstrate serendipity and inevitability.

 

And the emotions generated within are left as abstract traces of action, allowing the audience to make active inferences.

On the screen drawn by hand, the surface pushed out by the palm of the hand, the traces of the fingers, and the sharp lines of the nails remain as superimposed traces of action, blurring the boundaries without form. This disturbs the layers through the repetition of emptying and filling, showing the process of thought with openness and synchronicity through the ambiguity of visual information.

 

The finished work is not a resolution of emotions, but a break from the status quo, shrinking and expanding through reconstruction, and existing without form, making it seem lyrical and aloof.

 

Ko Woori received a B.F.A. in painting from Konkuk University and an M.F.A. in pure art from Kookmin University. She is interested by intangible concepts, such as unstable emotional currents that arise in various relationships, and expresses them through experiments on the physical properties of paintings. Currently, Ko Woo-ri is focused on creating works that organically connect "relationships" with the physical properties of the canvas. Notable solo exhibitions include Work in progress (space mm, Seoul, 2023), Visible but uncatchable (Park Soo-geun Museum of Art, Yanggu, 2022), Intangible things (Gyeonggi Museum of Art(GMOMA), Ansan, 2015), and has participated in group exhibitions SIMA FARM (Suwon Museum of Art, Suwon, 2019), Scanning Landscape (WHITE BLOCK Art Center, Paju, 2017) among others.​