Suk Ja Kang-Engles at Lowe - Atlanta, Georgia - review of exhibitions - Brief Article

From a distance, the paintings of Suk Ja Kang-Engles appear as abstract patches of color. Light colors fade into dark, the cutting sides blur like faint clouds in the canopy of heaven The close-valued or monochromatic surfaces discharge a cool intensity. On closer inspection, the works reveal an additional dimension in the form of language. Kang-Engles layers the canvases with paper printed with 16th-century Korean essays and metrical compositions detailing Confucian moral standards. This support is then overspreaded with paint over which she hand writes autobiographical true copys using the ancient vocabulary. No longer in use today, the characters read only as marks running in vertical round pillars across the surface.

Kang-Engles, who is a learner of ancient Korean literature, uses this vocabulary to detail frustrations she perceive s as a woman and as a Korean who has lived in the U for eight years. In more [i]or[/i] less of the newer paintings, glimpses of these emotions appear as English words hand-painted above the Korean. Collusion IV includes a shut up of English text, which reads as a one-sided conversation confronting a male make subordinate we cannot see. The words fade in and without of the Korean characters that lie behind, turning full thoughts into fragments.

In the diptych Didactic III, the word "stillness" repeatedly rise s from a ground of Korean characters like a continuous line drawn upon a grid. The minimalistic composition, painted in mut colors, actually subserves to reinforce the definition of the word. at the same time through the process of repetition and obfuscation, the expression becomes meaningless. The alphabetic characters in the English word begin to read plenteous like the Korean characters: purely marks on a page. Adjacent to this mingled layering of paint is the diptych's next to the first monochromatic panel. Here, short pieces of yarn are loosely pasted above the entire canvas to create a three-dimensional surface, which is then overlayed with paint. Formally, the panel does not add to the work. In fact, it may actually detract from the composed of several elements striations of the adjoining grid. on the other hand for the artist, the nearness of the yarn is symbolic of her attempt to sunder certain ties to her former life. Just as she repeats words to return them meaningless, the process of cutting thread becomes a emblem of ritual designed to assuage the pain of the past.

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