Yongsun Jang
Organic Resonance Through Form
Online Exhibition: February 4th - March 18th 2022
Yongsun Jang is an artist living and working in Seoul, Korea with a BFA and MFA in Fine Art – Sculpture from the University of Seoul. His multifaceted approach to sculpture and sculptural installations is both innovative and engaging asking questions of the viewer of both what they see and what they sense when encountering his work. Jang Yongsun's work is highly crafted yet beautifully organic, referencing cells, organic matter, marine life and interstellar phenomena such as black holes and dark matter.
One is struck by the dichotomy between the physical presence and suggested ephemeral nature of the sculpture. Yet, Yongsun as a sculptor has an intuitive feel for his medium that translates to a mastering of the delicate balance between solid and that which is in flux. Thus he is able to create forms that echo that which we can sense but cannot touch.
"I try to visualise the persistent quest toward the substance of life into my art... The stainless steel pipes cut with certain/varied lengths are connected together, dynamically portraying the beginning and the moments of birth, and becomes a nest that hold light and life. The substance of life, the light, life and birth, all these are the subjects that he wants to portray through his works, and they all pose these questions: where we come from, and how the absolute all really began?
My works are comprised of small and thin pipes with the dimeters of 7-34 mm, and sometimes, the cut dissections seem like they are small molecules of organic beings. This is why I named one of my series of works as <Particle>. These particles (or cut dissections) of pipes are heated up using LPG-oxygen torch, so they have aurora-like colors which are the most unique colors that can be given to stainless metals. Those individual ‘particles’ are arranged in a dynamic way, as if an organic being is moving in its own will.
My works are most intense when seen in a sunset or when placed in/under carefully calibrated lightings which enable the works to breathe. As if these small particles come together to produce strong explosive energy, you are soon entering into an imagination that the cold metals are indeed some organic beings with warm blood, breathing with life." - Excerpts from the artists text 'Light, Life and the Origin'
Yongsun Jang has exhibited extensively across Korea along with participation in group shows in the USA, Germany and Israel. He has work in the public collections of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, the Osan Museum of Art, Korea and Samsung C&T among others.
