Just a Cake - Piece of Hope
Kwon Jian mixes various art genres causing confusion and prejudice with a happening, a theatrical element at the center which is felt by both the artist herself and the audience.
The 'Just a Cake series,' which was released in 2021, was also created through such a happening.
Kwon's studio is in a bakery cafe which made her make cakes naturally with professional bakers. She was inspired by clay art while playing with her nephew and made a cake of an unstructured pile of clay and posted it on her SNS. Jeff Koons reinterpreted the object "colored clay" as a sculpture of aluminum, while Kwon reinterpreted it as a cake. The unique shape of the cake became a big issue through the media. However, unidentified ghost accounts have left malicious comments that she plagiarised Jeff Koons making Kwon and her cake hurt and scarred.
The cake lost its main purpose of 'celebration' and 'congratulation.' Kwon Jian and her cake were wounded. Kwon began working on the cake as a motif to make her think about cyber-bullying, criticize Yellow Journalism, and convey a message of hope to another victim somewhere in the world. On March 3rd, 2021, she published about 30 paintings and sculptures.
The painting derived from the cake which was dismantled into various sections and placed on the canvas. It has a cake-like texture and three-dimensional shape over the canvas. The candle in the work reveals the precarious situation and mind of the artist, and the flame burning in the candle means hope.
Kwon Jian said, "The injured cake is like a portrait of an unstable modern man who lives without the function of celebration and gratitude. The candle in it symbolizes the light of hope that brings life to life in pain. And that "I want to share a piece of hope with people like a piece of cake.
Just a Cake - Humming
작가는 언어로 표현되지 않는 무한한 사랑들이 오가고, 가사를 썼다 지웠다를 반복하면서 그리움과 슬픔이 언어로 정의할 수 없다는 사실을 깨달았다. 글(언어)은 한계가 있는 상황 속에서 그 복잡한 감성을 모두 담아내지 못한다. 그렇게 나온 'Humming'은 매력적인 그림으로 환원되었다. 알아볼 수 없는 허밍이 권지안 만의 언어 구조로 이어졌고, 그 안에서 탄생한 레터링 케이크들은 2021년 5월 돌아가신 아버지에게 보내는 편지가 되어 작품으로 내려 앉았다.
Humming Letter
Self collaboration series is painting a visual representation of music on a canvas between singer Solbi, and the artist Kwon Jian. The music is drawn through a performance on a canvas. Self-collaboration series comes from these two different identities’ co-operation creating artwork. It’s process of letting the music to be painted on the canvas that transforming music for listening to painting which is visual art. Kwon intuitively cuts the canvas which is her stage to finalize her work.
Music is the most important material for Kwon’s art and is the first step in starting to draw a picture in her self-collaboration series. She uses her body as the tool instead of a brush, and thus, the performance becomes the method of creating the picture. Also, the artist creates the work based on repeated practices of the performance and thoroughly planned chance. Everything before the performance was planned for a long time but also allows to improvise at unexpected moments.
Humming Series
Self - Collaboration
Artist Kwon Jian realizes her life experience as Solbi and her specificity as an artist through her whole body. In particular, the reason why her work distinguishes her from other artists' works is that she is taking the method of "finger painting" or "finger painting" by Impasto technique, which builds up paint with her fingers. She has been using finger painting techniques since four years ago to express the vitality of nature and wind. It should be noted that the object is constructed to feel the vitality of nature, just as painting with fingers on canvas, a world of planes. In her words, "I want to draw the wind and express the swaying flowers and trees," the painting on the canvas seems to have more vitality than formative three-dimensionality.
<Artist's Note>
After finishing my fifth self-collaboration "Blue," I tried to empty something by the time I was tired of my desire for creativity and was thirsty for rest.
I traveled to Europe in 2018 to change the environment and happened to visit the Garden of Monet in Giverny, France. To me, who had only seen the place as a picture, the scene was actually heaven itself.
After that, all that remains is the scent of nature and the wind that occasionally disrupts the tranquility...
I put the canvas on the floor, spray paint as my hands go, and leave my body to the rhythm that the unconscious remembers. And naturally, my hands dance along with the wind.
My father likes flowers more than his friends.
"Why do you like flowers?"
"The flowers are always there."
It was a reliable and kind answer that tells us that there are things that do not change in a world full of changes.
What are the things that are always there?
The busy, fancy-looking show windows were always grateful for the usual routine in the life-time, and I don't know if you didn't know it was more precious...
From a distance, it looks like a beautiful landscape, but from a close distance, you can see that you live with your own joys and sorrows.
My landscape painting is not the most beautiful moment, but the most ordinary 'capture'.
I think heaven exists as humans see and feel it.
I wish the ordinary days become a paradise for everyone.
Wind
