Kang Sun-koo Solo Exhibition: The Heavy Precipitation

Precipitation is the phenomenon in which solid particles suspended in a liquid settle to the bottom. When something inside a being reaches saturation, what exceeds its solubility settles heavily. One day we encounter a side of existence that has hardened and grown heavy. Among the many things that drift, it is often something we would rather avoid to suddenly face what sinks deep below the surface and turns to stone — frequently a sharp, self-inflicted melancholy, or the essential lacks and wounds of being human. Yet we keep looking into it, because the sediment within plays a decisive role in making a being what it is.

At the same time, the thread laid over this "heaviness" is truly light and flexible. Fine strands of thread engage with what settles and petrifies — sometimes like a repetitive, almost devotional act of winding, sometimes like a playful gesture — clothing the heaviness that has settled into a mass of cement with values of lightness and transcendence. It can look like an act of healing, stitching together wounds and lack.

The thin threads are also laid over objects, forming a thin membrane between existing signifier and signified. Objects whose meaning and function had been fixed take on color, are cut off from the air of reality, and are presented as the result of a devotional or playful act — becoming lighter and acquiring a more flexible meaning. They are now read and remembered as a certain time, a momentary emotion, a person once shared, the scent of the air.

This body of work traces the surface and depths of essence, kneading what has hardened at the bottom between the fingertips and turning it into something more flexible — a play that is intensely personal, yet not only personal.

— From the artist's note