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Oh Kyung Jang

OKJ

Oh Kyung Jan

Artist:

Main Theme

Performance Art

Year

2023

2022.07.19(Tue)-07.24(Sun)

2nd: Joy and Shame

The points that got stuck in words became writing. 

The point of blockage in the writing became tears, 

and the place where the tears dried up became contagious to numbness. No matter how many times I knocked on the door, the room have no answer. In the silence, a soft sense puts out a new face.

The ego, which had lost its voice, struggled, but the blocked cube was silent. Drops of water falling into the pure white closet left traces, and vivid colors washed themselves with water and faded.

At the point of contact, intensity softens and transparency finds its own color. As they dye each other, the traces left become another existence.

The world inside the closet is filled with peace that has been exchanged for silence. I just peek at the world with 

a thoroughly hidden look, and there is no trouble for me. 

In that lonely comfort, I explore another way of being. At the end of coziness, bitterness remains.

All Projects

It was dyed orange. The color of life. Represented with 

vitality and energy of life, it spoke of healing.A long time ago, the orange for me was a sunset filled with melancholy and loneliness, but the light that came back after some period of time removed the barriers around me, and it radiated lively energy.

What do we mean by healing?

All the unnameable beings were named ‘membrane’. 

I’m here, but I have felt that I couldn’t reach the world beyond the curtain. As if I was locked in a closet, peering out through a gap between the doors, I and the world were separated. The light in the room that seeped into the closet was orange.

The world seen from inside the closet was ‘outside’, but this place was still just inside my room. In order to go out into the world, we have to open countless doors and walk out on our own.

I covered the cold chill of the concrete floor with woolen cloth. The touch spread through the soles of my feet and circulated the air in the room, turning the lonely light into 

a warm hug.

I sit alone in a quiet upstairs room. The only place the outside light comes in is the door. When I open the door, the street lights from the entrance of the stairs leading to the first floor come in through the passageway and illuminate the room.

Strictly speaking, it is not a ‘room’ but an exhibition space. However, it becomes ‘my room’ for the duration of the exhibition. The sound installation that greets guests at the entrance separates the space from the entrance door to create an independent structure. In the space on the left, there is a paper on which the traces left by unconsciousness are written, and a water bottle is placed under it.

The inner cry mixes and smears with the rippling waves. When the water touches the skin and calms the angry voice and hugs it heavily, the anxious fog which makes me feel like to disappear from the hole on my body is also lifted.

 

The water that touches my body becomes the warmth that hugs my crouched back, and that comfort leads my frozen body to relax and stretch.

The sound of the tip of the pen squeezing the paper, leaving an imprint, comes through the speaker. Every moment of contact with the desk is converted into sound and cries out for existence. I reject the well-known voice of reason and approach the quiet voice that has only been pressed inside. 

 

In order to dig out the words stuck somewhere inside the body and throw them out, I set out to find them with a pen. The traces that were hidden so that no one would find out made quite a loud noise. The friction between the palm, the tip of the pen, and the paper expands the real voice contained in the seemingly quiet act, like a whisper.

Would you like to sit down? 

Can you feel it?

Would you write it down? 

Can you hear me?

I hope that the words that bloomed at the end will walk out into the world, and find her voice in the loud noise.

< The Sound of Speak-Out >

My first impression of the word pleasure was harsh. 

It seemed it should be noisy, passionate and hot. However, the requirements for the pleasure I was looking for were quite different. There was pleasure in the depths of the warm and cozy textures that flowed and touched my inner space. I was confused by the sentiment quite different from the image of sex and pleasure floating around in the world.

Even though I was angry at the reason for the existence 

of ‘difference’ itself, I took a more active approach to the image of pleasure that I drew.

The aspect of existence where we can feel the curves and textures. A few fragments of the sensation that spreads when the warmth that encompasses it surrounds the body are captured on a flat surface.

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