Cathy Tabbakh, Cindy Bernhard, Heesoo Kim, Jordy van den Nieuwendijk, Laure Mary, Melissa Brown, Sujin Lee

The word, ‘possess’ means ‘to belong to one’ and is used as a verb ‘to possess’ or as a noun ‘possession’. Today, the word is however often substituted as a tool to exert one’s own status or sometimes it becomes one’s life goal. This October, EM presents seven artists who continue to depict life on canvas or on flat surfaces to add a sense of temporal value to objects that have lost their true values. We hope to explore the essence of objects through this exhibition.

Individual possession is premised on justification of one’s many judgements. Objects do not possess any purpose. They are simply a form that exist in relation to our purpose. Hence the authority of possession is our absolute free will. What we must pay attention to here, is that the expression of the mind or the will is implied in an object as the symbolic characteristic, necessarily caused by entangled experiences. It prompts an irony, transforming the process of object consumption to value consumption in the conceptual sense. Quite differently from that, today, the way we look at objects as materialistic forms, tends to be based on external factors. This prejudice on objects is formed by society, however, the meaning of existence should be found internally not externally and without rules and boundaries.

Existence and non-existence coexist. Such nihilistic relativism engulfs us to think that everything we see only exists externally, creating ambiguous borders between the internal and external. These collapsed borders trigger meaning beyond that. The whole paradigm of possession turning into meaning of existence and further into thoughtfulness, brings us a step closer to the essentials or the essence. We recognize the value of invisible and intangible existences and that the way we think of an object may not change but we can sense the change.

Still life, the power of art that makes the invisible visible, offers a new perspective to see beyond what is seen. We hope the value of life on an individual term stays within each of us through this experience.

Yeseul Gong

EM Gallery
14, 48gil songpa daero, songpagu, Seoul
010-4393-0622

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