Time Layered in Stone, Wishes Woven into Minhwa: Two-Person Exhibition by Park Chan-woo and Chung Jae-eun

[Financial News] An exhibition bringing together photographs of stones and bookshelves and minhwa paintings featuring symbols of good fortune and longevity is opening.
According to art platform Arcon on the 26th, “Speaking to Objects,” a two-person exhibition by photographer Park Chan-woo and minhwa artist Chung Jae-eun, will be held at Forum & Space in Gangnam District, Seoul, from November 10 to 22. It will feature around 20 photographs and minhwa paintings. Through different media, the artists explore the time, memories and wishes embedded in objects.
Since 2009, Park Chan-woo has collected stones from across the country and continued his “Stone” series. He photographs them with water in a studio tank, then returns them to where they were found. Against a field of white space, he captures traces of time in the forms of the stones.
The “Memory Traces (Engram)” series began with photographs of overlapping words from encyclopedias and expanded its subjects to bookshelves and spaces. He adds, moves and removes objects in studies and cabinets, layering images more than a hundred times. The objects remain as blurred afterimages, evoking how memories accumulate and fade. In recent work, he draws on the chaekgeori format to bring everyday objects and works by contemporary artists together in a single image.
Chung Jae-eun, who studied Western painting, was drawn to the textures and colors of sunji and lacquered paper, as well as bunchae pigments, and expanded her practice to Korean painting. This time, she will present “Irworobongdo” and “Chaekgado.” She builds up layers of color using traditional motifs such as the sun and moon, five peaks, books and objects.
Irworobongdo is a court painting placed behind the seat of the king during the Joseon Dynasty, symbolizing the king’s authority and the dynasty’s continuity. Chung Jae-eun reinterprets traditional motifs through modern colors and composition, conveying wishes for good fortune and well-being. She adapts the back-coloring technique, applying color to the reverse of paper or silk so it shows through on the front.
Art critic Lee Ju-heon, who wrote the exhibition’s introductory essay, drew attention to the passage of time revealed by layered images in Park Chan-woo’s photographs and to the positive feelings conveyed by traditional imagery in Chung Jae-eun’s minhwa.
The exhibition is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, with no days off during the run.
Song Ji-min, CEO of Arcon, said, “Neither artist sees ordinary objects as mere subject matter; both focus on the memories and meanings embedded in them.”

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