Densely piled up brush lines, fragile paper… Become a forest and become a legend [박미란의 속닥이는 그림들]

Lim Seon-gu, screen created with paper and graphite

Variation of two materials: paper and graphite… Various expressions using just a pencil, adding paper and combining it to make it three-dimensional…
May’s solo exhibition ‘Fortress Construction Method’ A castle wall made of paper, into a story like a folktale

◆A mysterious world drawn with graphite

The story of Lim Seon-gu (33) begins on a sheet of paper with a pitch-black, sparkling darkness on one side. Graphite, the main material, fills the screen with a stubborn will, as if digging into the mysterious earth to create a river, or with a flexible attitude, as if following the texture of tree branches swaying in the wind. A pencil with a wick made by mixing graphite and clay inside a long tree is a basic tool for drawing. Testing the possibilities of such a humble material, the artist sinks graphite onto paper with different power and speed each time, and with an unfamiliar mind each time.

Lim Seon-gu explains that his work is a process of using paper and graphite to “weave subtle relationships between private experiences and public events to create a drama of various layers.” The artist has consistently used both materials and has shown various variations in expression. The ‘It Was a Strange and Peaceful Day’ series from 2018, the early stage of his career, appears to focus on unfolding narrative content by borrowing materials such as his childhood memories and oral tales. At the same time, I wanted to reveal the possibilities of various expressions that can be realized with the material graphite by controlling the strength and weakness of the pencil drawing force on the flat surface. It is “to settle scattered and flying memory fragments and graphite particles that slip through fingers onto the fragile base of paper.” Colorful materials, such as oil pastel, were incorporated into the screen to create traces of pigments of different properties mixing, spreading, and being pushed around. Sometimes, the movements of the organically related icons on the screen were translated into the form of video animation.

Lim Seon-gu was born in Incheon, graduated from the Department of Plastic Arts at Seoul National University of Science and Technology, and then received a master’s degree from the same graduate school. Solo exhibitions were held at SeMA Warehouse, Seoul Museum of Art (2022), Drawing Room (2022), Hakgojae Design Project Space (2019), and Gallery Chosun (2019), as well as Shinhan Gallery, Yangju Art Creation Studio, Doosan Gallery, Hakgojae, Participated in group exhibitions held at Drawing Room, Space Seoul, etc. He moved in and worked at the 14th residency at Incheon Art Platform (2023) and the 7th residency at Yangju Museum of Art’s Creative Studio (2022). This year, he was selected as the ‘2024 Kumho Young Artist’ and will have a solo exhibition at the Kumho Museum of Art from May 10th to June 16th. The title of the exhibition was ‘Fortress Construction Method’ and an English subtitle was added, ‘A Castle Built of Dust.’ “If we have been coordinating the trivial stories of the scattered and disappearing periphery of life with the physical property of graphite, in this exhibition, paper, which has always been the foundation, becomes the owner of the exhibition space.”

◆Paper Castle: From flat to three-dimensional

In order to effectively reveal the characteristics of graphite, Lim Seon-gu has always used paper as a support for his paintings. Paper, which is lighter and more fragile than canvas, becomes wet as graphite powder is applied thickly, and often tears or creases. In the group exhibition held at Doosan Gallery Seoul in 2022, the paper was chosen to be stretched out on the wall without being framed in order to reveal its properties rather than hide them. As I began to focus on showing the nature of paper, I began to intentionally attempt to express myself by pasting torn pieces of paper together in a collage format. I also experimented with varying the texture and height of the screen by bringing in objects such as small stones.

In the same year, at the solo exhibition ‘Invisible Flower: Excavating Footprints’ held at the Sema Warehouse of the Seoul Museum of Art, attempts were made to reinterpret paper, which is usually considered a flat support, as a three-dimensional element. As if re-enacting a fictional myth in a real space, he boldly used torn and pasted paper to create shapes such as giant owls, butterflies, legendary animals, and the trees of the forest they inhabit. A raised structure like an altar was installed in the middle of the exhibition space so that visitors who climbed on top of it could view the surroundings from various heights. The mysterious icons that were swimming within the screen now appear as entities that reveal a greater presence in the world outside the screen.

Recently, Lim Seon-gu has been actively engaged in experiments that preserve the narrative icons he has accumulated over the years while maximizing and revealing the physical properties of the materials. As part of that attempt, he began making handmade paper and using it as a support, and his recent work ‘Eyes in the Closet’ (2023) is a representative example. The semi-three-dimensional screen transformed into a sculptural form is reminiscent of the appearance of relics unearthed in history. A frame was prepared by stacking the paper thickly and hardening it like a stone, and paper cut into a net shape was placed on top to create a box-like shape. If you look closely inside the paper net, you will find graphite drawings attached to the inside wall of the box. As the title of the work ‘Eyes in the Closet’ suggests, unknown faces vaguely emerging from the darkness are staring back at us from the outside world.

(…) Paper remnants from different sources break, harden, and stand up again, as if they were yesterday’s time that will eventually disappear. The paper wall, which still precariously relies on each other, reflects the act of filling the edges torn by a sharp blade with moist mud and giving shape to the crushed mass by kneading it dozens of times. For some, it is a rumor, for others, it is an incident, and the stories that passed between me and others are now put in the closet and stuffed as if it were their own grave. – On how to build a castle, Lim Seon-gu (2024)

◆From the most fragile things…

One day, when I asked Lim Seon-gu what he drew, the answer he got was, “Things that are like leftover residue after being filtered through the filter of memory.” After a process of blackening paper like burying graphite, the few who survived became the masters of that world. His paintings, which started from very intimate memories and secret imaginations and have grown in an extremely subjective way, literally become a slightly thicker and heavier entity. It is about using the most familiar and everyday materials as a medium to explore their unique properties and ultimately creating a new world of one’s own.

Regarding the upcoming solo exhibition in May, he said, “Many of the images that were loudly discussed in the work are hidden behind walls or go into drawing books, and the walls erected in front will likely be an exhibition in which the narratives within are measured. Approximately 20 walls will be displayed, made not only from paper but also from all materials with light properties. (…) Paper drawings borrowing the faces of scraped-up land, hills, collapsing mountains, and beasts and birds each become ‘story morphemes’ to create the word closet, and now the outline of this bumpy paper closet is connected to the fence and wall. “I would like to continue with this sentence.”

The weak lines of the brush pile up thickly to form distant mountains and rivers, and the light paper piles up to become a strong castle wall. The black earth on paper, where oral stories, contagious rumors, and mysterious imaginations are buried, raises its body toward three-dimensional space. Lim Seon-gu’s screen hung on the wall of the exhibition space with a body that has become solid through the accumulation of layers is like a tale that has become a truth in itself.

Miran Park, Curator, Art Theory and Criticism

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