“The night sky full of stars is my eternal inspiration. Everyone has a way of approaching a single possibility whether it’s about a family, a society or a country, and it came to my mind that it’s a way of daily life and a philosophy of life.” _Song BurnSoo

Song BurnSoo, Possibility, 2024, object painting, 72.5 x 60.7 cm

Song BurnSoo has produced woodblock prints of thorny roses ever since he began studying in Paris in 1975, and the thorn has settled as a major motiffor his tapestries, paper reliefs, prints, and paintings, embodying his life and art and reflecting his stream of consciousness—where his gaze is fundamentally directed. His artistic journey, dedicated to a rumination on the idea of thorns, has been a process of pursuing purity and light in the gray zones between despair and hope, suffering and joy, and life and death. The thorn as sublimated through this senior artist’s expression points to an alternate possibility of visualizing cosmic wonder.

The balance of elements that make up and maintain the universe, the positions of stars, and other mysterious yet fascinating subjects are embodied by the thorns, meticulously arranged and refined by the artist’s hands. The thorns stand upright on the surface of the canvas as their spiky shadows create alternate forms. The thorns are no longer an abyss extended down to the ground but up toward the sky as the artist’s gaze expands upward into the unknown world. The thorns, standing in the middle of a weightless world of either red or blue, recognize themselves and the world around them as they exist as beautiful forms that quiver in response to lights and shadows. And within this world, the epic of the night sky unfolds through eternal time to narrate their mode of existence.

Song BurnSoo, Possibility, 2024, object painting, 45.5 x 38.5 cm

“According to Song, creating art is like waving a flag of progress and change for one day during a finite lifespan. For him, labor is more than just a physical process for enacting and disseminating his artistic concepts; it is the source of the existential meaning of life. In his daily labor of thinking, practicing, and expressing, he is like a member of an orchestra formulating the proper environment for composition: cleaning his instrument, collecting his wits, reinterpreting the score, etc. But for Song, rather than a performance of repetitive drills, each concert is a new and challenging experiment. … He is simultaneously a surrealist pursuing deviations, an adventurist who is open to all possibilities, and an avant-gardist renouncing the institutional frame.”  _Chang Dong-kwang

Song Art Gallery
Acrovista Arcade, 188, Seochojungang-ro, Seocho-gu, Seoul, 06600, Republic of Korea
82 2 3482 7096

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