ART Irina Bula H A B E N S C o n t e m p o r a r y A r t R e v i e w STEPHANIE SHERWOOD TANYA BUB THADDEUS LAUGISCH EDGAR INVOKER DEAN DABLOW SUNGJAE LEE MEHNOUSH MODONPOUR SHARMAINE THERESA PRETORIUS IRINA BULA Special Edition ART Irina Bula ART H A B E N S C o n t e m p o r a r y A r t R e v i e w STEPHANIE SHERWOOD TANYA BUB THADDEUS LAUGISCH EDGAR INVOKER DEAN DABLOW SUNGJAE LEE MEHNOUSH MODONPOUR SHARMAINE THERESA PRETORIUS IRINA BULA ART Irina Bula Special Edition
Work stimulates more work and, in turn, work leads to questions that lead to more questions. I follow these questions to a tangible visual object, the residue of thought. I am a photographer, sculptor, and painter, with painting being my present interest. Over the years, working as an artist, I have found that painters and photographers are different simply for one fact. A painter begins a new work on an empty canvas while a photographer’s "canvas" (the viewfinder) is always full. Painters are free to include anything they wish in their canvases. Photographers, by necessity of the mechanics of their tool, must eliminate or include what is before them, cropping to only the essentials of the idea. They must always contend with the real. However, as faithful to the reality a photograph may appear to be, a photograph can never be the actual object. C o n t e m p o r a r y A r t R e v i e w Sharmaine is a high – end, South African artist, living in the Sultanate of Oman, deep inside the desert in Nizwa, an ancient Arabic city. She has been described as the ‘essence of an extraordinary gifted mind’ because of her prodigally styled, intellect and intricate artistic drawings which include hidden puzzles and musical compositions. She holds more than 600 continues educational credits spanning, neurological psychology, medical and forensic science, aviation mechanics and management as well as multi - cultural mediation and negotiation and adaptability; spread over the safety and security, health and emergency service fields of which none includes art. She gained international recognition as an emerging artist in 2017, particularly for her drawing named ‘Mars Trojan – Elon – The Shroud (5517A)’ circling in low space orbit on the Asgardia-1 nanosat cube, with one other work of art. GAA Foundation invited her to exhibit at Venice Biennale, 2022. Also, a member of the ‘Yali Network’. Born and Raised in Bellevue, NE. Thaddeus(‐t.) took to creativity at an early age. Being self‐taught, he would re‐draw images at different scales by following the contours and shapes of an existing image. Focusing on comic book characters, and later creating posters by recreating album cover art for school friends, he decided to take an art class his Junior year of high school. From there he began pulling canvas using acrylic, throwing clay, and experimenting with other materials that were available come his senior year in Art Thesis. During his senior year, Thaddeus spent three hours daily in the school’s art studio where he decided to be referred as “‐t.” when it came to his art as he didn’t want to sign his long name on each painting he did. The elevation of abject forms fascinates me—raw meat splayed out on a cutting board or stuffed into a plastic container; fleshy shapes bound within a rigid cage; haphazard fabric, plastic and paper cast aside in a shopping cart. The stark contrast of chaos within structure strikes a sort of unexpected beauty. My explorations begin with strong lines and progress with thick paint. Recently, the expression of these fleshy obsessions has manifested into sculptural forms using cardboard, wood and leather. They have even become urban art interventions on discarded furniture in Los Angeles. The Confine series is a body of work that is defined by imagery of soft, fleshy forms bound within the rigidity of a cage; they are an exploration of the inherent tension between the two entities. The In Situ body of works are paintings on the surface of discarded furniture on the streets of Los Angeles. Born in Tehran, Iran, as a woman, I have experienced revolution, immigration, war and different cultures in varying phases of my life. Throughout these experiences my work has often gone outside the “traditional” boundaries of my culture. My work would seem to defy certain concepts that I have been taught to ‘obey’.I have come to believe that ignorance is the source of human suffering. However, my work shows a break from my cultural traditions and beliefs while also showing the consequences that comes of ignorance. With my personal life experiences and understandings of different cultures and religions, I also believe in human connection and equality despite differences in ethnicity, gender, religion and culture, and that we are ONE and apart of Nature. Not only do we have to be able to bring the balance in our mind, body and soul, but, also, in our nature and environment. USA R. S. A. /Oman & Bulgaria Stephanie Sherwood Sharmaine T. Pretorius USA Thaddeus Laugisch Dean Dablow USA Sungjae Lee USA Although I repetitively sew threads and draw lines for days and months, it is hard to grasp 'how they are going to look like.' I tend to plan a daily routine for a short-term discipline, and to anticipate the overall direction for several years' path, but I can surely assume that it won't be as they are planned. Knowing this, I think that it will be the same or even more unpredictable for the things I create. It has been 10 years since I started my career as an artist. During this decade, a re-visited restaurant that I used to like is gone, and a lady I adored is now wrestling with a peevish baby. Once I'd imagined that I would create the most cutting-edge artworks by fully utilizing advanced technologies, but I see myself happy to do the sewing and to make small drawings by putting the proper amount of paints on the nib of a pen. While I was washing my dusty hands at home, my 2-year-old son, who recently started talking, asked what I'd drawn or painted. ART H A B E N S Canada / Iran Mehnoush Modonpour
Edgar Invoker 56 110 78 142 232 4 32 In this issue Special thanks to: Charlotte Seeges, Martin Gantman, Krzysztof Kaczmar, Tracey Snelling, Nicolas Vionnet, Genevieve Favre Petroff, Christopher Marsh, Adam Popli, Marilyn Wylder, Marya Vyrra, Gemma Pepper, Maria Osuna, Hannah Hiaseen and Scarlett Bowman, Yelena York Tonoyan, Edgar Askelovic, Kelsey Sheaffer and Robert Gschwantner. Sharmaine T. Pretorius Mehnoush Modonpour Dean Dablow Stephanie Sherwood Thaddeus Laugisch Tanya Bub Irina Bula For last several years I’ve been interested in consciousness, cognition, machine learning and AI. What fascinates me the most is how human’s consciousness adjusts itself during the perception of external world. There are some mechanisms of such adjustments that I’m curious about above others. For instance, one of them is categorizing the information perceived into groups or “catalogues” which are then utilized to recognize new objects. Another one is false memories and circumstances under which those are being developed. Last but not least – perception mistakes that occur during object recognition or when consciousness alters different states. The actual moment of object recognition I consider crucial in artistic act. Main creative question I’m trying to answer in my works is whether we able to discover something beyond known while interpreting familiar objects or is it gonna be always trapped within predetermined catalogues of memory? For that purpose I often reproduce digital images by analogue means. This way I strive to melt several visual languages into a new one – being a metaphor to discovering the unknown. 174 200 Sungjae Lee Russia My artistic works invite people to understand themselves more deeply, feel empathy, find common values and notice the beauty in small things. What fascinates me about artistic medium is that I can to move the viewer from vanity into another reality and return him an atmosphere of harmony and peace. Irina Bula was born on April 14th, 1970 in Riga. In 1994 she was graduated from the Latvian Academy of Arts with a Degree in painting and sculpture.She took an active part in the exhibitions of main Galleries of Riga, such as «Center», «Daugava» and «Riga». She collaborated also with the American Art company and made the decorative sculptures for the «Vatican», «White house» and museums. In 1998, she emigrates to Luxembourg where she continues her active work both as a teacher of Arts in the Russian and English schools (sculpture and painting) and as an independent artist. Irina Bula Bulgaria Edgar Invoker Every piece of driftwood contains the unique and secret story of its origins and journey in its curves, colors and contours. The foundwood in these portraits, some of which comes from trees that lived to be hundreds of years old, made its way from various parts of the world finally coming to rest on the rugged shores of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. Being aggregates of such driftwood, each portrait derives beauty and character from the varied histories of its parts; their humanity arising from the complex migrations and diverse beginnings of the elements of which they are comprised. These portraits invite the viewer to consider that where we come from and what we experience along the way contributes to our individuality. The undeniable uniqueness that stems from the difference in our roots and the paths we follow is in fact a powerful common thread that binds us together and makes us distinctively human. The transformation from a collection of tens or even hundreds of pieces of driftwood, selected by the artist for color, form, size and texture, into a distinctive portrait involves an iterative process of combining and interlocking the found-wood until a “person” emerges, as if from a puzzle. Tanya Bub USA Bulgarian mixed media sculptor
Special Issue 4012 <Her Real Secret: Bosom Wafting> Multi-channel video,
2 Special Issue Sungjae Lee ART Habens video, 2013 024 variable size, 20 min loop animation, 2021
ART Habens Jordi Rosado Special Issue 403 <Her Real Secret: Birth of Mother> Lace, thread, beads, acrylic paint, and 18k gold leaf, 9.5(h) x 8(w) x 1.5(d) ft, 2021
Sungjae Lee Hello Sungjae and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit https://www.sungjaelee.com and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training: after having earned your BFA in Cartoons and Animations, and MFA in Experimental Animation, that you receive from the California Institute of the Arts, USA: how did experiences influence your evolution as an artist? Moreover, how does your cultural background due to your South Korean roots and your current life among two countries direct your current artistic research? Sungjae Lee: Hello, ART Habens! It is a great honor for me to introduce my works. Looking back at a couple of memories that triggered me to consider making artworks, the influential experiences were subtle but they remained for a long time so that I kept envisioning how great it would be if my works were invited to prestigious exhibitions and museums. As you mentioned, my interest in cartoons and animations for my university education implies the childhood dream of mine to become a cartoonist. In my junior semester, I happened to join some classes that led students to use techniques of animation as a tool to create artistic videos like motionengaged paintings. After my undergrad graduation, it was a pleasure for me to create those videos all by myself, and I participated in several group exhibitions with those videos little by little. I think that is how I started my career by considering my life to become a working artist. Showcasing my works, at the same time, I was preparing to study abroad, especially in the US, and I ended up going to CalArts for my MFA 404 Special Issue An interview by , curator and curator study. During the 3 years at CalArts, I went through such dramatic turning points regarding not only technical aspects, but stories and contexts that my works need to deal with. Such experiments were possible because the MFA program at CalArts let me meet experts in the areas where I needed to learn new and deep sources for digital renderings. Also, I was happy to appreciate the art works in-person visiting renowned museums that I saw mostly in textbooks in S. Korea, and this experience Sungjae Lee
ART Habens Sungjae Lee Special Issue 24073 <Her Real Secret: Birth of Mother> Lace, thread, beads, acrylic paint, and 18k gold leaf, 9.5(h) x 8(w) x 1.5(d) ft, 2021
ART Habens 24081 Special Issue naturally brought me to the place where I could think ‘it is no longer the world I watched on TV, I am in here.’ The deeply rooted my Korean identity helped me objectify everything around me during the first several years in the US. Especially the restricted circumstances as a visitor has brought many questions that I would've looked over. One of the most critical issues that I had to get was housing, especially after marriage. Since the rental situation for housing was very different from the one in Korea, specifically the rate, it was always terrifying to see the due. It is funny because I thought that art was a pure beauty that is far from the daily human struggles, but the series of my current projects were all born with such matters. The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of ART Habens —and that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article — has at once captured our attention for the way it invite the viewers to explore and question the concepts of time, materiality and movement, challenging their perceptual categories and engaging them into such immersive and multilayered experience: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us how did you develop the initial idea of Her Real Secret? Sungjae Lee: ‘Her Real Secret’ is a project that gives so much meaning to me as a creator, and it also worked as a huge turning point in my practice. And the story of how it was created comes from my early video works. As I briefly said in the first question, my career began with videos and their installations. After my MFA study, I had several events that I had to seriously think about my works; although my videos were invited to honorable exhibitions, I had to find deeper answers why I use digital media. In addition, since the conceptual Sungjae Lee
Special Issue 24093 direction of the works around that period went abstract and larger, like cognitive matters, I ended up confronting a point where I no longer was able to explain it clearly and personally. In the early 2016, I still remember it was slightly snowing, and I just came out from a critique with actual works of mine in Connecticut; in the critic session, my videos were not properly played due to issues of displayers, and my words about them sounded too ambiguous to know what my intrinsic intention was. Until the street became very dark, I walked around the town asking “Where are my works?” and “Why me, Sungjae Lee, want to make art and what I can truly talk about?” These questions remained in my heart ART Habens Sungjae Lee <Her Real Secret: Birth of Mother> Lace, thread, beads, acrylic paint, and 18k gold leaf, 9.5(h) x 8(w) x 1.5(d) ft, 2
24101 Special Issue and I had to find the answers. Coming back to California, I tried to make at least two changes: using tangible materials and talking about myself no matter how trivial it was. Then I found a leftover thread in my studio and I came up with the memories about my aunt who raised me. That is how ‘Her Real Secret’ was initiated. My mother was busy when I was young, so she asked her younger sister to take care of me on behalf of her. (It took a lot of time for me to know that my aunt even had to quit her job for it.) To me she was like my mother and it was funny to see how I looked like her more than my parents. When I was about 4 years old, the aunt Sungjae Lee ART Habens 021
Special Issue 24113 suddenly left Korea with her sister’s family (my mom has two younger sisters) for the US in the early 90’s. It was very emotional for me to let her go and I kept counting when she was coming back to Korea because she promised to be back in 7 years. Often she sent me gifts like Nintendo, M&M's chocolates, LEGOs, VHS version Lion King, etc. On AFKN, TV stars were continuously broadcasted; Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, Macaulay Culkin and NBA, MLB, and all the great Hollywood movies show how wonderful the US was. Throughout my youth, I ART Habens Sungjae Lee <Her Real Secret: Dress Well> Double-channel video embedded in a drawer, motor, lace, 5 min loop animation, 1
24121 Special Issue imagined my aunt and how she lives there and naturally I regarded the US almost like heaven. Like others in the era, I looked up to America and its culture. I think that such admiration for the US kept smearing into my unconsciousness to go there. It took a little more than 20 years, I finally went to the US for my master degree, and since then I lived there for 8.5 years. The time gradually changed how I felt about the place with my new circumstances; my status shifted from an international student to a part time worker to a married working artist. No matter Sungjae Lee ART Habens 6” x 20” x 8”, 2021
Special Issue 2413 how consistently I pursued my dream, reality was getting closer to me, and the most impending issue to me turned out to be money. That was how I seriously thought of how the system of capitalism has been founded to support spirituality like Puritan’s evacuation, political justice, and human rights. In the whole year of 2017, I kept looking for a breakthrough by finding non-digital materials, and referring to the story about my aunt, my journey to the US and the life in Los Angeles. From my old memory, Barnett Newman’s color field painting was in my textbook during my art class that implies the spiritual experience that the painter had. And I was fascinated with fabric patterns, and structures of the buildings from mega shopping malls. After that, I tested multiple times to build a semi 3-dimensional structure that adopted the middle zip composition from Newman’s ‘Onement’ out of laces and threads I bought at the malls. This is how ‘Her Real Secret’ began. You often draw inspiration from direct experience, as you did for <Her Real Secret: Onement> that deals with the story about the United States of America, a country where you lived for 8 years: how does your memories and your everyday life's experience fuel your artistic research? Moreover, do you think that your artistic research responds to a particular cultural moment? Recently, I see the holiest comes from the most ordinary; like industrious workers who sustain our society, house chores, and childcares. Since the moment where I conceived Her Real Secret, my personal experiences from life greatly influenced my artistic practices. And this routine has affected how I get inspired to embark on new projects; I try to capture very common phenomena near me and think how this happens. To tell you some related details, please let me go back to Her Real Secret a little further. Sungjae Lee: Although the context and the visual aspects became much more personal and physical, Her Real Secret was still in line with my video works (Oxymoronic Panorama) considering its basic concept; how we see the same thing in different ways. Like the same way, my understanding about the US was far more ambiguous when I grew up in Korea because I was exposed to mainly the bright side, and it was getting closer and more realistic through my school period and significantly living in L.A. on my 3-year artist visa after graduation. I might say that I became more cynical as I spent years confronting issues for my life like visas, medical insurances, and rents, so at some point I naturally shared those subjects with my wife, and friends. The one-bed apartment my wife and I used to live in L.A. Korea town had fewer sun beams, so it was mostly dark even in the morning. And I usually had online freelance jobs, so unless there were any in-person meetings, I stayed home all day long. At least more than 3 times per year, I had to visit Beverly Hills shopping center to purchase gifts for my family, and I still vividly remember how fresh and even sacred it was. The clean air, dazzling lights, escalators that take me higher and higher (it was so contrasty compared to my living room studio.) It was culturally a little different when the workers introduced themselves with their names and smiles, and I liked it pretty much because such welcoming gestures made me think that I was involved in the society. Before and after my wife and I married, my wife sometimes liked to visit lingerie stores with me. More than she was, I loved the interior designs, patterns of fabrics, and colors that were applied to the merchandise and signboards. This experience made me visualize something that was ritual, and spiritual like Barnett Newman may have gone through while he was painting the large canvases. As the artworks that I was working on was retrieving their physicality and I was pursuing large scales as much as my studio allowed, then transportation became another assignment for me to resolve. Thankfully, the ART Habens Sungjae Lee
<Absorption: Paisley and Perm> nib pen, gouache on paper, 6” x 6”, 2021
<Absorption: Paisley and Perm> nib pen, gouache on paper, 6” x 6”, 2021
24141 Special Issue materials I chose were relatively light and collapsible, so it was possible to pack them in 1/10 sizes into a small suitcase or a cardboard box. And it was always funny for me to explain what it was by saying “this is a stretchable artwork!” Moreover, since the characteristics of my installations and pen drawings are extremely fragile and meticulous, there were a couple of cases where some visitors in my opening went to talk to my wife and they applauded her effort to create them, then she pointed at me to let them meet me, not her. Not only the work itself of the series of Her Real Secret, but also I love the timeconsuming process of its creation and the events for showcasing them. With this work, I met so many people who enjoyed it (even I met my first US collector), and the process of bringing the pieces from California to other states and Korea were risky to preserve their best conditions but I always had to find the plan A-C. Also, one day in my studio I felt that my works are like daughters. In the mid-August of this year, I shipped two of my installations to China, and I sincerely prayed for them and told them “Have a safe trip and come back to me soundly!” Therefore, everything I experience with my creations becomes invaluable fuel to carry on my acts for art. Speaking of ‘my works’ response to a particular cultural moment,’ I didn’t particularly intend to highlight any cultural contexts, but just naturally my Korean background was juxtaposed to the experiences from the US. Simply, all the creations from me is about me, and I try to maintain consistency regardless of where I am. When I was young, I thought flowers exist for beauties, but they are actually a part of the strategy for their survival in nature. I just want to live who I am and hopefully things in me can reveal themselves via how I survive in art. An extremely interesting aspect of your artistic research deals with the portraying the infinitesimal part of whole objects, that you expand, creating new kind of hybrid languages. More specifically we definitely love the way your artworks almost urge the viewers to elaborate such a wide number of interpretations. French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas once remarked that Art is not what you see, but what you make others see: how would you consider the degree of openness of the messages that you convey in your creations and how open would you like your works to be understood? Sungjae Lee: Before answering this question, I believe that messages could possibly and generally be neutral. This means people take partially or somewhat differently depending on their circumstances. In this manner, I feel that I have relatively fewer authority to consider the degree of openness. I would like to share a presentation I had this year that let me think about the artwork that works as a mediator. In July of this year (2021), I had a chance to make a pitch for a solo show opportunity, and one of the jurors in the session asked me a question about ‘Newness,’ by commenting “I understand your passion to work on such delicate drawings and installations, but where would you like to find the newness? There have been many artists who dedicate their time to illustrate those details like yours.” My answer was like “Yes, I absolutely agree with you. To find the newness, however, I’ve done experiments with advanced technologies for more than 6 years. As I went further with technical research, at some point I felt as if I was lying to myself, because a few moments I was so embarrassed to make vague responses to questions about the relationships between me and my work. It took several years, and I’ve so far tried to use the most friendly tools (like nib pens) and relevant materials to resolve issues with physicality. Even though a number of artists have done the similar things that I am working on, I can now say that I am proudly on my way.” Interestingly, ever since I started embracing who I was with my Sungjae Lee ART Habens
Special Issue 24153 trivial stories, I saw that more people resonate their lives with my works. Some see their families in my context, and some read materiality along with how the installations occupy physical spaces. To be honest, I don’t know how much I want to open my works to be understood, but the thing I can do is to ask myself whether I am truly into the process of my works with less hesitations and regrets or not. Like other creators say, viewers already know how to project the unintended stories onto artworks on their own. Good artworks, thus I personally believe that, intermediate things like water; it is up to you what to mix to make something that you want to get like coffee, tea, or beer… Meticulously structured, your works feature such great care to the details, unveiling the bridge between the ideas that you explore and their tactile materialization. We sometimes tend to forget that a work of art is a physical artefact with tactile qualities, and we really appreciate the way, through sapient materic translation, your artistic production highlights the materiality among the viewer: how important is for you to highlight the physical aspect of your artworks? Sungjae Lee: Add one or two paragraphs about physicality: about materiality and their possibilities for further and new artworks. As I mentioned in the second question, it was deeply shocking for me to feel the absence of my works when I mainly focused on digital-based moving images. I can say that I am an industrious artist more than a talented one, that implies how passionate I was to devote everything of mine to the videos I made from 2011 to 2016. Of course, videos have wonderful strength in terms of its infinity in both physical and online venues, RGBoriented vividness, and most fascinatingly motions. Whereas, there is an absolute condition for it: more advanced devices guarantee better quality of outputs, sadly, I ART Habens Sungjae Lee <Her Real Secret: Onement in wh
24161 Special Issue Sungjae Lee ART Habens ite no.1> Disassembled lingerie, cotton & nylon thread, weight, acrylic paint, and 18k gold leaf, 66’ x 64” x 18”, 2019
Special Issue 24173 <Her Real Secret: Onement in red no.1> Disassembled lingerie, cotton & nylon thread, weight, acrylic paint, and 18k gold leaf, 90” x 85” x 15”, 2018
24181 Special Issue could not always afford such qualified equipment by myself. Accordingly, the opportunities to meet the audience went fewer and I realized even digital works should be properly supported with physical hardware to be acknowledged. It was more like a practical decision that I had to choose material-based installations experiencing the limits with my videos. In my studio, I could finally expect how it will be set up at shows near 90% that I wanted it to be. The external factors were reduced because the materials I used for my fiber installations and drawings on paper were fully controllable: no unexpected systemic errors or power offs, and the affordable cost of creation helped a lot. Furthermore, in the bright gallery space, I was happy to see the faces of visitors, and they looked as if they were having warm skinships with my works. Often it becomes suddenly harmonic if we meet and talk to each other no matter how the hatred is deeply rooted. I assume that that is because all of us remember the first encounter with mothers in their bosom on the bare skin. My youth through the early 90's was heartwarming; without phone calls, kids just came out home to meet their friends, and they drew lines on the ground then played together by jumping and running. Probably I am a person from that generation, so it is more appealing for me to use my hand and see things with my eyes. When we leave home, we know that we will come back later. The moment I moved on to the material-based projects, I sensed that I will have to come back significantly to the video in the future. Due to this feeling, I’ve been looking for ways to combine the installations like Her Real Secret with videos, specifically I would like to set up rear projected walls then hang the fiber installation on the stage. It seems to take some time, but I will find the possible time and methods. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, the work process of your projects seems to be that you gather and combine several conflicting symbols that nonetheless can be regarded as having the same origin. We really appreciate such stunning organic quality of your artworks, as well as the way they allude to meaning through symbolic and visual references: how do you consider the role of symbols playing within your artistic practice? And how important is it for you to create artworks rich of allegorical qualities? Sungjae Lee: First of all, I would like to mention that I initiated collecting diverse impressions from a single origin while I was working on my MFA thesis project, This Uncertain Conversation. This project was the first attempt to abstract figurative images from landscapes, and before this one, I enjoyed portraying representative forests and minuscule human and animal characters. It was back in 2013, I happened to revisit my very first collector who installed a large TV monitor to display one of my videos that was an animated forest. When I met him again, he threw a critical question; “The repetition from the 3-min looping video is now too predictable to watch more.” Obviously, I didn’t have a clear answer for him, then I wanted to see what I could really illustrate observing a real mountain. My wife and I (that time we were dating before our marriage), went to the northern part of S. Korea and found a beautiful mountain in summer. I videographed it for a while and was tempted to walk into it, and it was the moment I seriously sensed how the vision changed. From a distance, within the leaves above us, and even when we crawled into a cave, the same mountain gave me so many variations of herself. Then I came back to California and started merging the impressions from the mountain by abstracting them within a 30-min long duration moving image. From this project, using digital media, and to Her Real Secret using tactile materials, almost all of my projects offer how a Sungjae Lee ART Habens
Special Issue thing looks uncertainly different and changes. As you used the word ‘allegorical qualities,’ I have a process to select the best path for me to invite viewers to read my works in the way that I experienced. Yes, still I am very open to possibilities for people to go their own ways as I said in the previous answer, and I am even surprised to see that some appreciations that I was told by viewers explained much profound thoughts that I couldn’t imagine by myself. In terms of the role of symbols in my works, it is crucial for me to come up with the most personal symbols that trigger my memories, because they let me persuade myself to move on to the executions. Sometimes, I tend to fall into a pitfall where the allegorical path via materials I choose is so far from the initial notions that only blurry confusions were filled with the artworks. The worst scenario is the situation where I can’t even fully talk about them. Allegories are effective tools to infer various backgrounds, but like a double-edged sword, they possibly could mislead artworks to the points where the creations can be hurt by hatreds or discriminations. I admit that I need to study deeply and use the signs and symbols as carefully as possible with correct words on them. It is hard. It is challenging to set up the range of symbolic interpretations as a creator. Currently, I talk to myself to see the simple and personal ways to do things not just for art, but the way to live and think about my life as well. (Maybe this is because I am lately so used to talking to my baby using easily understandable expressions.) After making several symbolic misleadings, I realized how important it is to have a good colleague to share feedback, and thankfully my best friend gives such helpful comments on my works, my wife Miyoung. Currently, my interest in maternal love is a main theme for a new branch of a project, Birth of Mother, and from time to time I feel exhilarated to go over area with unused symbols in my previous projects. For example, I was conceiving a new form of an installation from my wife’s experience of giving birth in 2019, and applied red tone to most of the works in this series. For the choice of red color, I fell into complicated reasons like symbols of femininity or etc., but Miyoung cleared it out by saying “It is just blood, that is it.” Another interesting project of yours that has particularly impressed us and that we would like to introduce to our readers is entitled OXYMORONIC PANORAMA and we really appreciate the way it expands and even trascends the nature of human perception: are you particularly interested in arousing emotions that goes beyond the realm of visual perception? Sungjae Lee: Thank you for the warm feedback to OXYMORONIC PANORAMA. I feel that the realm of perception and its beyond is becoming the overall concept that goes to all my works, not particularly for this series. The approach of OXYMORONIC PANORAMA can simply be categorized as a digital landscape painting. As it's been explained a couple of times in this interview, these digital moving images are based on multiple impressions from the same origin, and I was into how the gap between my understanding and the landscape itself exists. From a significant distance, it can be reduced into a geometric form but the micro complexities in the details can fully be observed inside the scenery. From this research, I feel that only the uncertainties are left by my limited human perception. Around 2014, I listened to a brief explination about Immanuel Kant’s philosophy that took me to a place where I can’t fully understand what the real world is. Then the idea partially was mixed with the concept of OXYMORONIC PANORAMA. At some moment, I 19243 ART Habens Sungjae Lee
<Floating Drawing: Spherical Sphere no. 1> Nylon, cotton thread, sinker and acrylic paint, 60-inch diameter, 2017
<Floating Drawing: Spherical Sphere no. 1> Nylon, cotton thread, sinker and acrylic paint, 60-inch diameter, 2017
24201 Special Issue understood that the only thing I tried to capture was the flow of perceptual shifts with abstract forms that slowly transform. I am now happy to see how this thought has evolved in my practice; Her Real Secret shows how the impression of the US changes in my life, and Birth of Mother came out from Her Real Secret and it was initiated from me seeing my wife becoming a mother. Yes, I am in love with the way everything becomes something else and the way that I unclearly understand them. You are a versatile artist: your practice encompasses videos, installations, and drawings, experimenting with installation and expanded cinema practices. It's important to mention that your 10-channel video Avyakrta: The Unanswered Questions was exhibited in both Vision Hall at Hyundai Motors University, equipped with the largest media displayer in Asia. Your works often provide the viewers with an immersive experience: how do the dimensions of your pieces affect your workflow? Moreover, what does direct you to such multidisciplinary approach? Sungjae Lee: Thank you for your warm response to my practice, and I am especially happy to hear the word ‘versatile.’ It was a great honor when I was given the opportunity to produce Avyakrta: The Unanswered Questions with the sponsorship from Hyundai motors, and showcased it after its production. Like you mentioned, Vision Hall at Hyundai Motors University is equipped with the grandiose media displayer that generates fantastic visual panorama, additionally 3- dimentional sound environment was another type of art. (On my first visit, I was curious what 3-d audio was, but the installed numerous speakers on the columns and the ceiling showed the audio system renders 3-dimensional sound effects that flow through specific designated directions and spots.) From the VH AWARD exhibition, and a residency at Massachusetts Modern Art Museum, the Studios at MASS MoCA, I had a valuable experience of how the scale of display can offer audiences such special experiences and how touching it was. In the middle of my residency at MASS MoCA, luckily James Turrel’s light installation room was finished, so I had a chance to appreciate it. Then the overwhelming spatial artwork made me think of the best condition for my moving images as well. Reflecting the memory, it will be wonderful if I have a chance to set up a plan for the space itself, also the very detailed final video’s renderings as clean, large, and highdefined as possible. On the other hand, recent videos I made that are on small size monitors gave me a new path to consider which devices I need to use and how to use them regardless of the qualities of technology. Two small monitors are embedded in each drawer of little furniture, and they automatically open and shut very slowly by revealing the animations. It is exciting to imagine how people would react to the piece like leaning their body towards to see the screens before the drawers are closed. Thinking over the characteristics of scales, I try to accept more relevant tools and sizes according to the thematic foundations of projects, not just the largest or most advanced one. For the multidisciplinary approach, I might give you a similar answer. Ever since I saw the other side of digital art, finding a proper genre to convey my ideas became very important. Then the question naturally expanded to the medium itself, so that was a small beginning to utilize all the possible and diverse tools and renditions. I see that now the main practices that I go over are installations, videos, and drawings, as you commented. In my brain, I draw foggy, but experimental sketches for the next works and projects. It seems not important to guess if it is doable or not, because as long as I am truthful, they appear in my studio no matter how clumsy its first look would be. Sungjae Lee ART Habens
Summer 2015 2413 You are an established and awarded artist: over the years your works have been showcased at prestigious galleries, museums, and events, including the Red Cat, Cheongju Craft Biennale, Korean Cultural Center in Los Angeles, Currents New Media Festival and Joshua Tree Highland Artist Residency: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? By the way, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to the online realm — as Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sjlee.art — increases: how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience? Sungjae Lee: These are great questions and I am also thinking of appealing answers to convince myself. I said ‘appealing’ because each situation is different and some reactions go very positively and some leave multiple homework that I have to prepare more for the next events. Firstly, the majority of visitors to my exhibitions seem impressed to see the optical illusion that layered-fined threads create. Also, the qualities of pen drawings also welcome people to appreciate how delicate the lines and faded colors are. I presume that I unconsciously have a tendency to push either technique or quantities of visual depictions to the level where viewers feel astonished. Then people get interested to know the behind stories of my works. My early major came from mass cultures like cartoons and comics, so I wondered what and how to read things when I went to conceptual art exhibitions at first. Those artworks were less readable in comparison with cartoon shows on TV, and some artworks I hardly recognized because of their intentional visual omissions. Now, I absorb what I couldn't understand in the past, so I admire conceptually abundant artworks as much as gorgeously rendered visual outputs. To convince me of my childhood, however, I still regard visual attraction as one of the priorities. Thankfully, this part of my process gently welcomes the audience to appreciate the literal beauty of art. Bong, Joon-ho is known as a director who is wonderfully good at addressing a point where his intention stays along with Special Issue ART Habens Sungjae Lee <Bustling Silence> 4k resolution, multi-channel video, 12 min loop animati
24221 Special Issue many people who can also comfortably come and follow it. I think that he is called a genius because of this, not any brilliant ideas or special cinematic grammar. This is somehow the way I would like to insist on as well; common beauty invites many to get things that have impacts on their heart. Speaking of the new wave of the relationship with globalized audiences, it is thrilling for artists Sungjae Lee ART Habens on, 2018
Summer 2015 Special Issue 2413 to show their works worldwide without fees to pay for galleries, and it even invites a wider range of fans to introduce who they are. For the audience, at the same time, people can search and study internationally acclaimed artworks without dressing up or spending time to drive to museums. While I was working as an art instructor for high school students, one 16-year old guy surprised me because he very specifically knew all the global art stars via ART Habens Sungjae Lee <Avyakrta: The Unanswered Questions> 16k x 2.4k px, multi-channel video, 12 min loop animation, 2016
24221 Special Issue on the digital platform. On top of that, the recent trend that frightens and simultaneously excites us is about the metaverse, NFT, and new digital formats that gather everyone on the globe in a virtual realm. Here I need to confess that I am a lazy Instagramer and it is always amazing to see that so many artists use it for their selfpromotions, and collaboration opportunities. Even a person like me has had a great advantage from such digital archiving as a fan of other artists because the accessibility is very user-friendly that I can watch all the global art events, and artist talks on YouTube with a fingertip. An artist talk I was lately very inspired by was uploaded by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea about artist Jung, Jung-yeob on their YouTube channel. She addresses her life as a woman who raised her kids working as a painter. Watching the video interview of her, I felt sincerely grateful for this digital era. Without it, I wouldn’t have quietly heard her voice like that twice. On the one hand, I am a person who feels relieved to go and see the on-site exhibition space before the installations start. If the only way I can get the information about the venue is via emails and photos, my imagination monsterizes the spaces so that I shiver by the moment I arrive at the galleries. I think that the in-person experience would be like this, because we are not sure if our understanding is right before we confront things with our body. I say this because I want you to come and see me work if the exhibition site is near you. (Plus, my works are very fine, so videos and photos can’t fully catch the real details.) We have really appreciated the originality of your artistic production and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for Instagram. Usually, when I give references about artists, students just nodded, but once I told the student some info about relatively hidden artists, then he even referred to several more. As artists get chances, art lovers also get higher taste Sungjae Lee ART Habens
sharing your thoughts, Sungjae. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? Sungjae Lee: Thank you for giving me such an honorable chance to talk about myself and my humble works. I was moved to read your questions that must have made you carefully go through the writings and overall work history that I've created so far. I really appreciate that. The referred series of Birth of Mother, I am working on it for my first solo exhibition in Korea at the Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, so called SOMA. Since my son was born in May 2019, I can proudly say that I take a huge part of the childcare and I am good at it. This experience has given me such a valuable sympathy for mothers in general. With more understandable texts and beautiful forms of artworks, I am creating the largest installations (about 10fts) among my works, and series of drawings and multi-channel Special Issue Summer 2015 2413 ART Habens Sungjae Lee <Avyakrta: The Unanswered Questions> 16k x 2.4k px, multi-channel video, 12 min loop animation, 2016
videos; I use the shapes of Korean married women's hair styling interestingly like Afro Perm, their dress patterns. The exhibition will begin in the mid of November 2022, and I hope to share the exact date when it is confirmed in early 2022. As long as I have time to start a new project, I would like to work on a figurative digital painting with abstract transitions in line with OXYMORONIC PANORAMA. Moreover, I am interested in the both bright and gloomy parts of the cities where I used to live or visited. In my mind, there are more images floating around in my head and I say "Oh! This is it!" but most of them have already been done by other artists after researching them. Do I need to take time to examine deeply to start with. 24221 Special Issue Sungjae Lee ART Habens An interview by , curator and curator
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2 Special Issue Thaddeus Laugisch ART Habens video, 2013 024 21' Installation
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Thaddeus Laugisch Thaddeus Laugisch Hello Thaddeus and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit https://glassologybyt.wordpress.com in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production and we would start this interview with a couple of introductory questions. As a basically self-taught artist, are there any experiences that did particularly influence the evolution of your artistic research? Moreover, how did you come up with the idea of Glassology? Thaddeus Laugisch: Yes, there are many influences in the form of experiences that do contribute to how I learn and what I do. There’s also an internal drive to ‘do better’ that can at times, even ruin a piece. To discribe those experiences, I’ll try to be as short as I can. I discovered the theraputic value in creating at the age of nine, where I began free handing favorite comic book characters, album art covers, and other personal interests. My classmates liked my work enough to ask for drawings here and there, but it remained a pass time until my last two years of High School. I enrolled into an introduction class as an elective my junior year. I felt it was a well rounded class, introducing you to different mediums and ways to use them. The following year I took a coarse that focused on 2d art and its history. As it was also my senior year, I had more time available to the studio that I was allowed to follow the Art Thesis syabullus instead. If I recall right, we could do what we wanted as long as we were productive. After stretching canvas for a series of 404 Special Issue An interview by , curator and curator landscape paintings, I started with a snow capped mountain ridge, subltly lit by the moon light. Using Phthalo Blue and white acrylic only, I worked my blending to create the mountain ridges. After adding a consellation and some stars to a thin clouded sky, I felt the painting was complete. The instructor however, insisted that I add more stars to the point that the painting was ruined for me. From that point, I learned to hold my ground when expressing what I feel and put on my
Special Issue 24053 canvas. That said, I’m always open to critism and respect the history of those before us, however my painting is mine, and the instructor that day should have painted his own. After high school, I declined an acceptance to the Art Institute of Denver as the cost was too great and I was more interested in psychology as a college study. Shortly after, I met my now wife then good friend who introduced me to oils, and then I decided to quit and switch majors to Architectural Drafting and Estimating. After becoming a father and graduating, I found a position with a window glazing company. Fresh out of college, as finances were limited, I was unable to afford canvas and paints. However I recalled a summer in college, when I use to work for a hardware store by day, and a gas station attendant by night. I noticed after the customer did care for the mix of paint, that the mis-tinted paints would go on sale for a decent price. Now working as a window system detailer, I noticed a lot of flat surfaced glass being thrown away. With permission of course, I would select discarded glass from the dumpster to paint on with mistinted wall paint from a hardware store. I’d begin expermenting with the paint and how to manipulate it enough to mimic oil as much as possible. I would also play with cutting away some of the painted surface, to re-fill in and provide depth, as well as confusion to what was painted first. I experimented with double pane, frosted, whatever was available in the glass dumpster, I painted on it. A few months later, about fourteen years ago today, I was let go and found the position I currently have today. I design large capacity grain elevator and processing systems, along with the structures that support it. This position provided me with enough income that I was able to afford oils and canvas again With an employer that encouraged my work enough to allow me to finish a painting on company time, for an exhibition. Years had past before I painted on glass again. Visiting another good friend’s home where he had P4-of-4.Series2.16x16x.25 ART Habens Thaddeus Laugisch
24061 Special Issue his own studio and having glass and paints in hand again, the art just took over. I only focused on that glass, adding chemicals and colour then proceeded to manipulate and contort the mixture to a point of breaking the piece of glass in a ‘happy accident’ moment that I still intentionally break glass from time to time today. From there, the result called ‘Glassology’, began. The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of ART Habens are marked out with such unique visual identity that reflects the personal technique that you have developed over the years. What has at once Thaddeus Laugisch ART Habens
ART Habens Thaddeus Laugisch Special Issue 24073 captured our attention of your your approach is the way you use visual language in a strategic way to offering an array of meanings to the viewers: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, we would like to ask you if you create your works gesturally, instinctively. In particular, how do you consider the role of chance and improvisation playing within your creative process? Thaddeus Laugisch: The technique I call ‘Glassology’ to me is a therapeutic experiment of chemical and colour manipulated in ways that are now to me, predictable. Over time I began learning how the paints and chemicals react, P1-of-4.Series2.16x16x.25
ART Habens 24081 Special Issue that I can get close to the same outcomes of previous work. The trick, however, is trying to blend and manipulate contrasting colours and then manipulate it further to create the patterns that provide an ‘organic’ result. My work has often been mistakenly for granite, aerial photography, and even resin pours…until they even look closer, then they are stuck staring for a moment or few. At first, the blending and patterning were more random as the colour pallet and their placement on the work itself were always intentional. Far from ‘dirty pouring’, I place colours individually. Along with chemicals additional colours, heat, air and even gravity, I began to remember what works. Going further, I later found out that the results were never as ‘random’ or ‘chaotic’ as I once thought myself. During an Art Crawl in downtown Fargo, a Mathematics professor from the local university approached me with enthusiasm, stating he could see the numbers in my work. He said that my work provides fractal ratios that can be measured with the right calculation and that my work would be perfect to help demonstrate his lectures in Fractal and Dynamical Systems. After the conversation, I donated a piece I made in the pallet of the University he lectured at. Fun fact, that piece has a fractal ratio of 1.66. We have been particularly impressed with the sense of movement that marks out your artistic production and we really appreciated the way your artworks create such enigmatic patterns, communicating an alternation between tension and release. How does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include moment by moment in your artworks? Thaddeus Laugisch: Each work is a self-psychological study to get over a current, or long-lasting personal emotion or experience. As I manipulate and pull the paint to create the patterns, I also neglect other areas to provide contrast. Same could be said in the colours chosen as well. The chemicals allow me to Thaddeus Laugisch
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24101 Special Issue blend colours that often end with poor result. So I am able to provide contrasts that reflect both sides of an internal struggle due to the binary factors that are similar in what we see today in society. Instead of focusing only on one side or colour, and complementing it, I rather present a balance that reflects the beauty of both to find a balance rather than the usual hue a yellow with purple can create. We really appreciate the way you create works of art that challenge the viewers' perceptual parameters, to create interzones of sensory perceptions: how do you consider the relationship between reality and imagination, playing within your artistic production? In particular, how does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process? Thaddeus Laugisch: There are two reasons for challenging the viewer. First is anonymity to what I personally felt during the process to create the work. I however do counter this as I provide some of what I see in the Latin title I give a piece from time to time. The second, is why I initially created it, therapy not only for me, but the viewer as well as this is where abstraction and imagination can relate to reality. I can best explain through an experience I had during an Art Crawl. One of the works on display was made after I had a bad day at work and wanted to use earth tones with white contrast. As a gentleman was making his way down the table, he suddenly stopped and kept staring at the earth toned piece. After some time I asked, ‘May I ask what you see?”. He’s a retired marine that was injured in Iraq. The piece reminded him of his unit and to the incident that injured him. It brought out some emotion that he was holding onto, and he couldn’t stop staring at it as he told me his story. I gave it to him refusing his money as the connection and story he had to my work, was payment enough. A painting I did to relax and shake off the stresses of not saving a design at work, ended up connecting with this gentleman far more than I have yet to experience staring at a painting myself. Whether you create or view it, the personal connection you make to it, is also the art itself. The abstraction of work, without a known title to direct the viewer to what I saw or felt, became a reality to that gentleman through his imagination and his past. By naming my work in Latin, I do give a bit of what I see but also stray from what I felt in making it. This leaves the audience open to see what they want to see. So much so, that I mount all works so they can hang in any direction, to see something different at a 90° turn, and many do. Your artworks - in which abstraction collides with reality - allow you to provide the viewers with unique visionary experiences: what kind of sensations do you aim to communicate with such bright, joyful combination of tones? Thaddeus Laugisch: Like the experience I encountered with the Marine Veteran I mentioned before, anonymity in abstraction provides a viewer to see what they want to see. This is often affected by a situation or personal experience in their own life that my work provides a ‘Rorschach effect’ that brings a person’s reality to the abstraction. My goal with the colours and even metallics is to catch the eye and naturally take it on a ‘dance’ around the painting. The reactions I have seen by viewers, makes me feel that the work is better placed in locations that require you to wait for long Thaddeus Laugisch ART Habens
Special Issue 24113 periods of time so the viewer can fully see all the patterning and details a piece provides. We daresay that your unique technique allows you to create new kind of visual languages. French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas once remarked that Art is not what you see, but what you make others see: how would you consider the degree of openess of the messages that you convey in your creations P1-of-3.Series1.16x16x.25 ART Habens Thaddeus Laugisch
24121 Special Issue and how open would you like your works to be understood? Thaddeus Laugisch: I feel that Degas was only half right. Its not only what a person sees, but also how the person personally feels and relates to the work itself. As many seek to control what another sees, often times the story that explains the piece becomes the art rather than the piece itself. I’m not here to Thaddeus Laugisch ART Habens
Special Issue 2413 direct, rather provide the audience with something that they can personally connect to. Art, in my opinion, is a physical representation of emotion, not only from the artist but the viewer as well. To tell someone what is, could mislead them from their own personal reflection. You create unique physical artefacts with tactile qualities: in this sense, we dare say that your artworks use the insight of the lens to rediscover the concept of materially: how important is for you to highlight the physical aspect of your artworks? In particular, how important is intuition in your creative process? Thaddeus Laugisch: The physical work outweighs an image, hands down. One part I find amusing is the moment a viewer decides to look at the side and back of a piece, to then come back to its front with a puzzled look to start the process over again. The contrast and layering of each work will provide depth, however it is a flat, 2d painting nonetheless. In fact, if you were to do a side by side comparsion of a high resolution photo to the work itself, you would say what many have said before, “Images do not give the work justice”. I honestly agree and because of this, I do not offer prints or copies of the work for sale. The detailing and patterning is so macro that close up photos of works were mistaken for different works of their own. It got to a point that I felt to circle locations on an and overall photo, to point out where the close ups were taken from. As images do provide a tactile appearence, more depth is provided by the thickness of the glass itself as well. Similar to water, the thickness and angle you view it, can provide more depth and even magnify some of the work. This is only shown if you were to physically view it. Then there’s also the lighting... I paint my work using both warm and cool lighting as they can also provide contrast to the hue of the piece while the metallics used also reflect and shimmer the light to provide another effect. So much that a piece can change with the sun as it rises and sets. This 19.R14-UNK ART Habens Thaddeus Laugisch
24141 Special Issue can be seen as well if you were to take a photo with the flash, then without. You are an established artist: over the years your artworks have been exhibited in several occasions: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? By the way, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to online platforms — as Instagram https://www.instagram.com/t.glassology @tglassology — increases, how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience? Thaddeus Laugisch: When it comes to online exposure, I’ve always had the struggle with the work not being fully shown. When I started in 16’, the transition to online was present even then. The comments have always Thaddeus Laugisch ART Habens
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Special Issue 24153 been great, and offers to gain more followers had been overbundant, but I still had a frustration of not showing the work for what it trully is. That said, I have been able to reach people far beyond my local and regional reach because of the digital platforms as my work is currently in the personal collections of those Germany and Japan, but like any artist, I wouldn’t mind others seeing it as well. That said, there always has to be the willingess to adapt and work through the parts we fall short on. As I Pre-Obsidian 3.32x12x.25 ART Habens Thaddeus Laugisch