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Under the Surface: Imi Hwangbo
by Cathy Byrd A finely drawn line separates Imi Hwangbo’s sensual sculptures of the 1990s from the discretely dimensional objects that she makes today. The swollen forms of “The Waiting Chamber” series have given way to exquisite introspection. Before, she carved and modeled organic shapes in plaster, then cast them into red rubber vessels. Now she turns her drawings into vellum maquettes and achieves sculptural geometric designs from multiple layers of digitally printed, hand-cut Mylar. Hwangbo has exhibited
her work at the International Print Center, the Alternative Museum, the
Asian American Arts Centre in New York, the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center,
the Schmidt/Dean Gallery in Philadelphia, the Korean Cultural Center in
Los Angeles, and the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina,
among other venues. Solo exhibitions of her newest works are scheduled
for 2004-2005 at Hiestand Gallery, Miami University of Ohio in Oxford,
Ohio, and Kiang Gallery in Atlanta.
The artist’s
fusion of drawing, printmaking, and sculpture translates the pojagi, an
everyday object from her native Korea, into a surprisingly elegant visual
language. Traditionally, women patch pojagi together from scraps of cloth
in repetitive patterns and motifs that evoke flowers, animals, and elements
of the natural landscape. Patterning plays a totemic role, offering protection
and the promise of wealth, harmony, longevity, and fertility. A culturally
specific kind of luggage, the ubiquitous pojagi adapts to what is in and
what is not inside its folds. Hwangbo is much more interested in what
is not: her wall-mounted and floor-based installations study the beauty
of negative space. “I delve under the surface to create an image,”
she says.
The work is emblematic
of an individual experience that represents an entire cultural system.
Each precisely hand-cut form evokes a pure femininity while remembering
Korean women’s traditional concern with ornamentation. Blessé
(2004), for example, alludes to delicate filigree, flowered vines, or
lace in a pair of 11-foot cascading forms. The artist believes that the
pojagi series functions as “a feminist critique by inverting traditional
icons of desire for fertility…these icons are elaborated and expanded,
but not embodied,” she states. Through this visual metaphor for fecundity,
she illustrates how an artist’s inventive mind might take the place
of the womb, giving birth to a unique body of work.
This philosophy is
reflected in Mitosis (for Frida Kahlo) (2003), a sculpture that ripples
out on the floor like a perfect white flower, with layers of petals radiating
from the scalloped central opening, each streaked with a thin red line.
Spire (2004), a new companion piece in red, is shallow at the center,
with layers accumulating outward to a two-foot thickness. Hwangbo’s titles
add other layers of thought. Without Being alludes to the way that creating
negative space became the substance of the work. “Blessé,”
meaning “wounded” in French, might refer to the fragile or bruised
ego that lies behind the lacy beauty. The white bloom of Mitosis (for
Frida Kahlo) recalls the lingering feminist influence of the late Mexican
painter whose art became her progeny. Hwangbo’s work
has remained open to diverse critical interpretations. Barry Walker, curator
of prints and drawings at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, included
Without Being in a recent print show, writing how “the artist works
in a scale that is distinctly sculptural, but subverts the format with
the illusionism of Op Art.” When Glenn Harper wrote about “The
Waiting Chamber” for Sculpture magazine in 1998, he remarked on the
“new wit and a contemporary reference to pop culture in Hwangbo’s
work.” He noted that her art created enough distance from its source
to become fresh and multivalent.
Six years ago, my
personal response was to the psycho-sexual physicality of “The Waiting
Chamber.” Evoking a swollen tongue, a chambered heart, and intimate
body cavities, those sensual red bulbous shapes and their valve openings
echoed the feminist sculpting of Eva Hesse and Louise Bougeois. I was
struck by how “Hwangbo unsettles our view of vulnerability and pleasure,
awaking in us a desire to express the same naked volupté.” Her latest, and equally potent, series elicits an entirely different reaction. These days, she makes viewers think about female beauty without reference to the physical body. Her sculptures have become more deeply metaphoric and contemplative. Hwangbo believes that her artmaking “evokes a Buddhist concept of emptiness as a state to be achieved rather than avoided. From this viewpoint, the experience of emptiness is a starting point for self-exploration.” Indeed, as the eye and mind seek to comprehend the detail and perfection of these quiet forms, we become participants in the inward spiral of Hwangbo’s creative innovation. Atlanta-based critic and curator Cathy Byrd directs the gallery and teaches at the Georgia State University Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design. Sculpture Magazine Archives |
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