it is an ambiguous birth without me being aware of. Next, it is refined over a long period of time to give it ‘necessity’ and ‘intentionality’. Metaphorically it is the intended growth, which is the world I live in.
-From by IM Sangbin

When you meditate, at some point you experience being ‘without self’. IM Sangbin’s work begins with a performance of unconsciousness rather than consciousness where the energy of dancing brush strokes meets blank canvas. This is another way of Meditation. Without planning, without drawing, as if dancing unconsciously, the energy of brush strokes is lively and spontaneously produces new energy. As the energy flows naturally and collides, new energy is created. The artist encounters his inner self with momentum and colorfulness and the embodied natural form gains new vitality. It is raw energy. This raw energy directly meets the deepest part of unconsciousness, and that energy elicits excitement. Consciousness encounters unconsciousness and the colors rendered in the process communicates with intuition.

In this way, each living vitality, each and every conversation, the spontaneity and roughness of emotional and naturally springing energies complete a signal of new reversal when met with IM Sangbin’s other rational self.
Each raw energy is completed through his elaborate painting of multiple layers. In other words, as if tuned by a rational director’s gaze, it results in sophisticated and refined harmony like an orchestra. The spontaneous mixing of energy and colors is sensuous. As if instruments of different tones are tuned by the wonderful conductor of an orchestra, and as if the scene of rough pieces are created into a great movie through sophisticated video editing, improvised images are completed by refining, arranging, and painting over a long period of time with a rational and sophisticated gaze. It is completed through a process of sophisticated rational editing in which the before and after are drawn so precisely that, at first glance, it almost looks as if no change has been made although it had been worked on for a whole day.

When the perfect emotional abstraction and the impeccable and sophisticated rational expression process meet, it provokes the essence of art, as Herbert Read said, “Art is abstract by nature”.
As Herbert Read said, “Art is abstract by nature” where the perfect emotional abstraction and the perfect and sophisticated rational expression process meet. Knock on the essence of art said. In a way, IM Sangbin’s work is a captivating concoction of both hot and cold abstractions.

Thus, the process of his work can be compared with human growth. From seed to bud then to a tree, it can be compared to growth process of living things. Adding direction of intention in the process of completing his work is similar to a tree growing into a larger tree or a newborn going through education and training process to become a fully grown person. IM Sangbin’s works are completed in the same process as if a life is destined to be born and matured. We all have eyes, nose, mouth, body, and limbs, but each person has different appearances and personalities. Would it be like in 21st century world we are living in where everyone is the main character although each person is a member of society?

In this exhibition, two mediums, painting and photography are presented. These works contain an understanding of the world with a variety of stories in encounters and interactions between parts and wholes, between emotion and reason, and between beginning and growth.

IM Sangbin has been working on projects with various medium such as photography, painting, drawing, installation, and video. He has taken several pieces of well-known landmark buildings around the world, and rearranged them using digital collage method to enlarge, reduce, and reproduce. It expresses an imaginary world based on reality by increasing its geometry or density. In other words, the works expand our perspective by substituting the objective external landscape with inner imaginary world in a very plausible way. The presented photography works show a perceptual landscape through montage of several photographic fragments taken by actively changing viewpoints. Mobilizing the wonderful imagination by seeing inside through outside and seeing outside through inside is entertaining. Also, a space is transformed into a three-dimensional structural form from a mechanical point of view. It is to expand the concept of perception through the director’s eyes constructed by weaving weft and warp.
Just like his painting works develop, his photography works go through a process of growth through photomontage. In other words, the works are completed through the process of proliferating small cells. Printing method in which dyes are used on aluminum can endure a very long time and does not require a frame.

The exhibition matures our perspectives to think and see artistically and moreover, presents a new paradigm for what art should look like in the future including abstract expression.

gallery NoW
16, Eonju-ro 152-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Korea
+82 2 725 2930

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