Jeom Soo NA

Na Jeom Soo is a mid-age abstract sculptor who works by sculpting wood with carpenters’ tools such as chisel and saw. Over the past three decades, he has taken numerous journeys of exploration and art, appreciating landscapes, air, and soil in different parts of the world, using those moments of appreciation as the engine of his creative activity. From thin sheets of paper to works that resemble a wood log that seems to have grown in the gallery space, Na’s abstract sculptures come in a range of different volumes and weights.

Na Jeom Soo graduated with a BA and MFA in sculpture from Chung-Ang University. In 1998, he was named the winner of the Main Prize at the Young Artists Festival and a Special Selection at the JoongAng Fine Arts Prize, which marked the beginning of his successful career. Though not a prolific artist, he holds exhibitions, mainly at the Page Gallery, and has his own fan base.

The theme of the works at Kiaf SEOUL 2023 HIGHLIGHT is “The Position of Being – Nameless” and he presents this as a spatial installation. His description of the work is much like that of a philosopher: “I contemplate over and over again to recognize and understand the state of the mind and being revealed as a form through the material. The formative-ness implied in such course of thinking, or in other words, the vertical and horizontal, surface and depth, light and darkness, borders and the in-between, is probably the position of the mind and being that my works arrived at. It is through the vertical and horizontal that I express the mind and being.

Wood, the key material of his work, reflects great lengths of time, from ancient times to the present. Thousands of sawing and chiseling done to spare its surface, grain, and cracks reveal and echo that time. In speaking of the characteristics of his art world, Na said, “in a sense, it is paradoxical to express the space and mind as sculptures when they actually lack the form,” and “My goal is to make visitors be reminded of and meditate on space and mind as they look at my sculpture.” He added, “My work is an act of calling rather than expression, and it is closer to tranquility than decoration or a display of something.” In other words, what the artist wishes to convey and show is not the shapes of sculptures, but rather, the thought that visitors come across when they see his works.

Na said, “The life of an artist, in its entirety, is art.” By this, he means that the way artists perceive life and the world and the way they act are all art, the place where those traces are recorded is the studio, and the final products of such practice are artworks. He also added, “That is why I feel challenged and helpless whenever I have to move my studio due to various circumstances. (…) yet the desire to respond to the sound of art calling me drives me to live in the present and continue to make art.”

Jeom Soo Na Solo Exhibition 含 · 處 Ham · Cheo (2023)