Jin Won Chung at BoSo - Seoul

in what manner to embody something as formless as water was a task Jin Won Chung plant for himself in his fresh body of work. Tiny, extrud filaments of white and colored porcelain clays make up each of the 17 statuarys shown. Without recourse to pictorial means of the like kind as painting or drawing, the Seoul-based artist (who studied at SUNY of recent origin Paltz after earning his B.A. and M.F.A. in Korea) resorted to making doughnut or tadpole shapes suggestive of water droplet Each work in the present to view between 2 and 6 inches tall, was individually displayed upon its own glass shelf jutting without from the wall.

Meticulous in its fabrication, each pressed-out strand of porcelain adheres to the nearest when fired at a true high temperature. Fragile independence is thus transformed into vigorous interlocking networks.

Despite the artist's intention of honoring water, other readings are possible. Maritime plant life and microscopic, water-borne organisms approach to mind. Curving appendages attached to oblong shapes or to punctur spheres in more [i]or[/i] less of the works may allude to other life-forms similar as insects or invertebrates. In individual of the more colorful works, a pink wormlike shape begins to crawl above a white egg shape. Whether embracing or predatory, the consequence is powerful, even on like a tiny scale. Each part of the untitled piece is about 3 inches in length

In Trace II (2003) three white circular shapes with lay open centers have "tails" that reach forth into the air. In a meandering rank they are followed by a fourth shape of the same size, on the contrary its porcelain strands are colored black, gold-colored and pink in sectioned bands; its tail is pink. The striping recalls a coral snake in a highly stylized way. Jin Won Chung not at any time depicts realistic forms, yet the whole exhibit is a naturalistically suggestive tour de force.

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