Luke Elwes, Sammy Lee, Bridget Riley, Vakki
Co-curated with Stephanie Seungmin Kim at Myung Won Folk House Museum, Seoul, Korea.
Bridget Riley (born London, 1931) and Luke Elwes (born London, 1961) are two British artists who were, and are, heavily influenced by the deconstructive & colour-theory elements of the 19th & 20th Century European impressionist tradition, whilst having each developed entirely distinct modern / post-modern practices. Riley and Elwes’ works each follow self-imposed restrictions of expression, yet find infinite variation within them.
Riley’s early influence by the impressionists and pointillists – in particular Georges Seurat – is reflected in her approach to reconstructing and reimagining the natural world in planes of pure colour and line. Her hard-edge form of abstraction is many ways the opposite to Elwes’ more flowing, expressive and organic painting practice. Just as Riley eliminates all possible chance in the realisation of the final work, Elwes revels in it – allowing the very water that he is depicting to shape and define the final expression of his densely layered and evocative works.
The exhibition ‘Vision and the Visionary’ brings these two artists working in traditional mediums (in Riley’s case silkscreen printing and in Elwes’ case watercolours on paper) into the still and rarefied environment of the Myungwon Folk House Museum, as well as into the dynamic company of artists Sammy Lee and Vakki. In the digital work of Canadian-Korean artist Sammy Lee the process of construction is continuous, as real time data is fed into the installation from various online news sources, and is algorithmically reinterpreted into movement, line, colour and sound within the virtual environment of the work itself.
In the practice of Korean artist Vakki – a graduate of the Royal Acadmy of the Arts in the Hague and Hongik University – we also find an entire system emerging into being. Whether in 2D works, kinetic sculpture or installation, Vakki’s work displays an endlessly inventive but aesthetically coherent ‘language’.
