To Be a Part of our Story + Go Away

Gallery Gachet is celebrating Asian Heritage Month as part of the explorASIAN Festival with an exhibit that opens May 6 from 7 to 10pm. “To Be a Part of Our Story” is an exhibit by two Korean artists living in Vancouver, sculptor Youngsin Lee and painter Julian Hahn.

“The artworks in this exhibition will include both positive and negative stories of life,” says Hahn. “After visiting the gallery, viewers may reach the common conclusion: the end of hope is despair, but after we understand the despair, we can have more wisdom to realize our hopes.”

Hahn’s paintings are based on realistic figures and portraits. Using traditional painting methods, he will also be exaggerating the shading of a part of a figure or face, leading to odd accents and contrasts. Text included on the painting works as compositional elements as well as enables the viewer to have a direct understanding of the difficulties and questions in Hahn’s life.

Lee’s clay sculptures are based on anatomically realistic human figures combined with abstract images. Many of the human busts have openings in the chest revealing a void or objects embedded with meaning. In contrast, some of the figures do not have a full head or proportional limbs. Drawings and Korean characters applied to the surfaces add yet another story.

“If we consider artistic expression in sculptures and paintings as a visual language,” Hahn adds, “then language should tell stories of our experiences as individuals, landed immigrants, artists, and beings in the universe.”

The artworks in “To Be a Part of Our Story” are meant to evoke empathy in the viewer, which can lead the viewer to interact with work. In using a variety of methods to distort otherwise representational or realistic art, viewers will more easily be able to appreciate the artists’ images and experiences.

“To Be a Part of Our Story” is showing in the main gallery at Gallery Gachet from May 6 to 29, 2005. In the second gallery is an exhibit by painter Riia Talve, whose series of work in chalk pastel, charcoal and acrylics will deal with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as well as Talve’s own feelings and experiences. Talve is a student at the Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design.