In To The Wild
“Art Corner H”, Seoul, South Korea
2021 11 29 - 2022 01 08
‘Art Corner H’, a complex cultural and art space of the Sun Blanket Foundation, presents 20 new works that stimulate imagination through Ieva Trinkunaite’s solo exhibition ‘Into the wild’, which appeared in the art scenes of the three Baltic countries with full support of the Lewben Art Foundation in Lithuania. This exhibition was curated to view the complex relationship between animals, nature, and humanism which is dealt with countless times in the field of art in painting.
Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher, paid attention to the violence and destruction of nature and opposed any attempt to moralize nature instead of having a lyrical and ideal image of nature. In order to overcome and deal with such rough and wild nature, human behaviour must also become violent. The essence of painting is considered along with the theme of “coexistence between humans, nature, and animals.” The task of painting is not to reproduce visible things, but to show invisible value. Trinkunaite’s work is multilingual. The animals and objects in the work are emphasized to stand out and recognized while maintaining boundaries with the possibility and decisive meaning of the elements without mixing characteristics. Diversified images such as detailed and delicate descriptions, flatness, and objects are very metaphorical. The artist presents a painting style that shows the interrelationship with the images of each element beyond the simple mixing of various images.
Humans whose faces have been erased in Trinkunaite’s work expressed their feelings about the artist’s object in a shape. The artist’s inner image is depicted and can be thought of as an expression style that implies the artist’s peak rather that the relationship between the object and the image. The faceless portraits in her work are one of various attempts to erase the classical concept of portrait from human reflection and reflection to conquer nature, to capture new approaches to humans and individual characteristics.
Trinkunaite pays attention to the positive aspects of the devil “Mephistopheles” who seduces Faust in his lifelong masterpiece “Faust”, which Johann Wolfgang von Goethe has worked hard for over 60 years. Since the Middle Ages, the devil has been recognized as “an immoral and evil being that harms humans and incited sin,” but the devil has a slightly different meaning in ancient Greece. According to socrates, recorded in Plato’s book “Symposion,” Demon is described as a “middle being” between God and humans and as a two-sided being with both good and evil at the same time. Trinkunaite is developing a variety of series based on Mephistopheles, who appears in a series of French romanticist painter Eugene Delacroix among the various devil figures.
The reason why I decided to introduce unfamiliar Baltic artists in Korea is that the global art world is paying attention to multinational artists recently rather that following the trend. Excellent artists are also appearing in Baltic states and Southeast Asia, considered a barren land of art, and artists from South America and India are also active. I think it is an era that has not followed a trend, and I think the art world will focus more on geographic elements that on trends or trends in the future. As a curator, I will not follow the trend or flow from a more macroscopic point of view, and I will not think about the trends they will create while forming relationships with artists. However, I wonder how the artist will grow and move forward, and I want to introduce new art from various countries to Korea. Through an individual exhibition by artist Ieva Trinkunaite, who builds her worldview with various media such as intaglio, drawing, and photography, I hope it will be an opportunity to become independent from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s to produce international artists, curators, and thinkers.
Curator Taeho Choi
