what does intimacy look like in a post-pandemic korea?
bringing ‘touch’ back into our physical vocabulary.
God knows how long I’ve held a hand. I’ve often wondered what intimacy will look like when all last year has been spent away from people, from touch. I often wonder when it’ll be safe to be held by someone again.
Hands. We often forget how much is held in them, what they can do, potentiality and capability. Kwon Chulhwa, in his abstract drawings, explores this in his co-created space, Studio Concrete. It remains a space that is outspoken and fluid about breaking the conventionalities and conservatism found in the Korean contemporary art scene.
We see what we desire. In his marker drawings, lines form bodies pressed close together as if the body has forgotten intimacy altogether. With careful strokes, he teaches these imagined figures how to reach for each other again. They learn touch and how to hold things. A cigarette hangs. A kiss is felt. Faces are held.
In his acrylic works, he plays with shadows, what is hidden and what is embraced. Two striking portraits use bold colors where a shadow is supposed to be, having the characters in his work learn how to be desired, playing with it in brush strokes similar to that of the conveniently ongoing Picasso retrospective at the Hangaram Arts Center. Picasso himself was also a very passionate person, his subjects always together within their own touch.
When you reach the top of the stairs, you are flooded with playful, delicate lines. They are light and airy enough to influence you to grip a shoulder, lean in close to whisper to someone, to talk about how things used to be, how people used to be. For Korea, summers are a time when people perch themselves by the Hangang River to catch the breezes that swell above the water, when you see easy-going togetherness. This is how they wind down during the humid work-weeks.
My friend asked Kwon Chulhwa what contentment is. He answered, “I love love.” When he is in love, he is reliant on himself. And then he is loving, he is allowed to paint. When painting, he’s usually relaxed in a chair, allowing leisure strokes to bring a sense of comfort to his aura and the people around him and his art.
Catch “Touch” at Studio Concrete, on display until August 29th.
