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PARK JUNGSUN
Dripping Painting of Jung Sun Park Hiding desire while exposing, and disguising
The theme of Jung Sun Park’s latest artwork is ““transformed desire – the subject out of conscious””. This theme containing ideas such as desire, consciousness, and subject is apparently psychoanalytic. It means that those psychoanalytic themes can invigorate his inspiration and become the object of attention at least. Therefore, paintings can be seen as a recapturing and suggestive symbol of psychoanalytic concepts.
Humans are creatures of desire inhering in the instinct of self-realization. This instinct is oppressed by a social system. From the perspective of system that we have, desire is a deviation from lines (bans and taboos) drawn by the system, which could fall in trouble. Thus, these norms and systems oppress individual desires of self-realization. This is where the “transformed desire” begins because those desires find their own opportunities of self-realization by any means and can’t be dominated by the system at all time. Since the desire sees no way to be realized, it finds out the detour or transformed route by itself. The desire disguises to deceive the system or to look not dangerous, that is called the ““transferred desire””. Even though the desire itself is not, it is double-faced in the process of disguising or transferring, and concealed in transformed shape.
And where the desire goes under is the subconscious. Namely, the stratum of conscious oppressed by the system is expelledto the stratum of subconscious. The subject out of conscious on the main theme is the one hiding in the subconscious, the subconscious subject, and the oneinhering transformed desire in. The subject can be divided into the conscious subject and the subconscious subject. The former is himself (a persona, a mask disguising himself) giving up to the norms and systems, and the latter is himself (hidden behind the mask) expelled by the norms and systems. Thus, the theme of this painting shows the duplicityof subject overlapped but splitinto the conscious subject and the subconscious subject at the same time. It also demonstrates the tension derived from it and instability of existence. The revealed instability of existence transcends the boundary of the painter expanding to the universal portrait of modern people.
Then, how does he form the duplicity of subject and the instability of existence? In his pictures, there are symbols of desires in many cases but some of occasional exceptions such as Buddha and lotus. The most common examples are symbols of sexual desires like a naked body of woman, those of artistic desires like Mon Lisa (because it was parodied in many channels, especially as a object of homage), and those of popular, political, and social desires stimulating a celebrity mindset like Princess Diana and Alfred Hitchcock. At times, Buddha and lotus even look as a kind of religious symbols of desires considering his theme. (It is much meaningful to see how the object is put in the context than to look at the object itself, which could change the whole meaning of it. Thus, what determines the meaning of object is not linked with its innate characteristics but the context.
In the mean time, there is something found unusual. His paintings apparently reflect the subject in his artistic world but we can’t find him inside the artwork. (Of course, there are paintings reflecting his personal life.) His subject is embedded in the other side of paintings suggestively, not exposed on the surface. In other words, the symbols of desire in his paintings are the ones that he desires, the ones caught by the radar of his subconscious subject, and the ones representing his subconscious subject. (Desire cannot emerge up on the stratum of conscious as itself unless it’s transformed.) In the painting, his subject is expressed as a subconscious subject, not conscious subject. It’s particularly shown as a desiring subject, that is structuralized as a group of other people. Desiring means desiring others, and the desire toward other people constructs the subject. Thus, the subject is filled with a group of others. His painting reflects a sense of identity or structuralized Subject with heterogeneous, erratic, and casual group of others.
The painter chooses, transforms, and reconstructs these symbols and images of desire from usual mass media such as internet or magazine. He uses tools like O.H.P. film to initially transform and reconstruct excerpted images that is expressed in 2nd-degree screen, contrasting light and darkness clearly. (Although it is sometimes divided into 3rd-degree screen for a halftone) In other words, it converts representing and realistic images to stylized, symbolized images. Through these processes, the image is transformed to the ones anonymous, neutral, and doubtful. For example, unless images are perceived as the stereotyped such as Buddha, lotus, Princess Diana, Alfred Hitchcock, and Mona Lisa (even in this case, we recognize its symbol and information, not the object per se.)it is very difficult to define. In fact, the naked body of woman in his work doesn’t give any information but one that it is a woman’s body. It even makes the objecthood of desire and sex vague
The theme of “transformed desire” is emphasized in this way. By estranging, he covers desires with transformed desires and converts sexual objects to neutral or value-neutral ones that contain no meanings. It means that the chance of oppression with direct exposure of desire is avoided, and it simultaneously explains why desires have duplicity. He shows exposing while hiding, realizing while oppressing, and eventually disguising desires. Furthermore, it’s observed the constant self-censorship or mechanism that censors those desires.
In the mean time, he uniquely uses a kind of dripping technique. Unusually, he draws paintings by this technique using the viscosity of enamel or lacquer paints instead of normal pigments. As we can see from the famous Jackson Pollack’s dripping technique, this type of painting was created from the auto-writing and contingency (which is linked to the subconscious). It also matches with abstract paintings rather than representing ones (Indeed, some of his painting backgrounds remind of Pollock’s) because it is overlapped by the perforating painting (letting pigments through perforated holes) after setting basic screen with dripping technique. However, it doesn’t draw the clear line of relationship between background and motive as the image applies the dripping technique as opposed to simple printing. Sometimes, it even makes the boundary of them blurry, for example, the orbit of dripping exceeds and eventually deletes the fixed border line between background and motive. This is where the symbol, body, and objecthood become vague. The objecthood of defire in his paintings are transformed and hidden doubled or tripled. (Look at obsession about subconscious and self-censorship!)
Meanwhile, it’s not always true that painting with dripping technique is auto-writing and contingent, or abstract rather than representing. Namely, most of subconscious process is interrupted by some of conscious process, and also abstract paintings imply the concreteness by different perspectives. (It’s well-known that Jackson Pollack’s paintings are abstract and imply the innate and primitive scenery of North America.) Like this way, dripping technique is naturally alluded to scenery. A low hill appears through the orbit of erratic tracks, and horizon comes into sight from a distance. He draws a certain motive with an acrylic paint on casual or suggestive scenery as the motive is coming from his family history or personal life descriptive and anecdotal.
For instance, he chooses a certain part from his family picture and transforms, then it exudes eccentric but plentiful odor mixed with the suggestive scenery and transformed mono-tone image (black and white). It also takes us to nostalgic moment of feeling as if it recalled the reminiscences in the past. Unlike others artworks, it gives the hunch that his series of paintings will contribute to his pictorial inspiration expanded.
Kho, Chung-Hwan Art Critic
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