Group Exhibition
Artists: Jaeho Shin, Luke Bacon, Minkyeong Park, Syaura Qotrunadha, Xuemei Huang
Circle in the Square is a group exhibition of international artists, studying MFA at Goldsmiths University, reconstructs the environment and human nature, with material experiments from diverse geographical conditions and backgrounds.
These days, it is a common phenomenon for people to try and escape the boundaries of our square universe in terms of spaces, computer monitors and our own mind. This exhibition seeks to take the virtual into the digital, and the digital into the physical, extracting notions of fantasy.
Suggested in the titled Circle in the Square, this exhibition seeks to break free from boundaries associated with the physical realm, with the works escaping conventional forms to convey these ideas. The artists travel, play games, move to foreign places, and try to redefine ideal versions of life and nature. The circle becomes a metaphor in how the human mind and the subconscious is eternal and infinite; whilst the square, perhaps the white cube, constrains the infinite into the finite within material boundaries.
The international background of the artists acts as a catalyst for breaking down individualistic geographic origins, relating the works between them and offering interesting dialogues within the space. Aiming to blur the boundaries of the square entrapment modalities of life and the white cube, evolving into a larger hollow sphere of explorations.
Bios:
Jaeho Shin (b. 1988, South Korea) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice extends beyond painting to include video, photography, and installation. His work is a series of attempts in order to explore identity - which includes the personal, social and cultural - through a fine art practice deviating from all the aesthetic and ethical stereotypes that work in the real world. He has been searching for new possibilities by allowing for chance and using materials that are not conventionally used in art making.
He currently attends the MFA Fine Art program at Goldsmiths, University of London in London, UK (2022 - 2024). He received his BA and MA in Journalism and Mass Communication from Dongguk University in Seoul, Korea (2014, 2016) and also studied Communication Design at King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, School of Architecture and Design in Bangkok, Thailand (2009 - 2010). Representative exhibitions include “Don’t Change the Color of Your Hair”, Art Space At, Seoul, Korea (2022), “Metamorphosis”, Cyart Space, Seoul, Korea (2020), and “Hagyomány és divat”, Korean Cultural Center in Hungary, Budapest, Hungary (2019). His work is currently in Korean Cultural Center in Hungary.
Luke Anthony Bacon (b.1992, UK) is a British, London-based artist. Currently studying MFA Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. The framework of his practice focuses on irony and sincerity. The Metamodern structure of balance, ‘ironic detachment with sincere engagement’. Both irreverence and sincerity through what is a give and take of metamodernism in the evolution of postmodernism.
Working within painting and sculpting he kills the life from the original counterpart of reference. His objects want to be more but are deficiently made, seemingly now pathetic. His current focus is the idea of extracting the virtual into the physical with specific attentionto the realm of video games.
Minky Park (b.1995, South Korea) majored in design in South Korea and is an artist who uses a wide range of media under the themes of design, technology, sound, sculpture, video, and computer-based installation work.
From the beginning of her work, she experimented in machine-based art fields such as artificial intelligence and 3D printers. Amid the blurring of the distinction between virtual and reality, she explored small groups, asked questions about the impact of technology on humans, and suggested communication and participation with the audience. Currently, she is expanding her work by connecting the impact of the two sides of the technological era with human emotions.
Syaura Qotrunadha (b.1992, Indonesia) is an Indonesian artist who likes to do experiments with various mediums including photography, interactive art, paper recycling, video art, digital archives, installations, and publication materials. Her work mostly talks about music, history, education and social issues.
Currently, Syaura is pursuing postgraduate study at MFA Fine Art, Goldsmiths University of London. Her works have been exhibited at “Berdiam/Bertandang: Art for Refuge”, National Gallery of Indonesia (2018), “Cur(e)ating the Earth, Shifting the Center”, Kaya Normal Baru Online Exhibition (2020), “10x10: Me Culture/We Society”, Korea Research Fellow (2021), and “METAMORPHOSIS METAVERSE”, Elektra Virtual Museum, Montreal (2022). She is also one of the shortlisted artists for “Julius Baer Next Generation Art Prize” (2020) held by Julius Baer Group and “The 4th VH Award” (2021) held by Hyundai Motor Group.
Xuemei Huang (b.1984, China) conveys her understanding of life, her interpretation of philosophy from life experience in her art works using unlimited materials. She got her B. Tech degree in Food Science and Technology from China Agricultural University in 2005 and worked as a Customs officer after graduation until 2021 when she enrolled in the Graduate Diploma in Art programme in Goldsmiths.
In Sep 2021-Jul 2022, while she was broadening her mindset about contemporary art, her essay and art works focused on the motif Uncertainty. She suggests that modernity has blinded us human beings from realising that uncertainty is the normal of the world. She supplied a little examples on how we could do to accept even embrace uncertainties through her graduation show of GDA programme What Breeze Brings.
In her recent study in MFA in Fine Art, Goldsmiths, she tries to learn from Mark Rothko, triggering spiritual emotions through her painting like his, but through depicting snow peaks. She hasn’t given up her trial in textile as well, but this time, a more ecological way, using buried calico to bring the form of meaning of degradation to her viewers.