What does “Time” mean?

Lee, Joon-Hee
(editor at The Art Magazine “Wolgan Misool”)

Jeong, SoYoun’s third solo exhibition is composed of three works. These works of landscape and still life are installations of monitors and images whose topic is ‘different time that exists in the same space’. Her work of landscape which is the first one we face with when we enter the exhibition hall, presents the coexistence of the past and the present. While on the right part the landscape of the street is being shown in real time through the CCD camera installed at the street light in front of the gallery, on the left part the landscape of the past is shown as if it is one of the present.
What should be focused on in this work is the very meeting area of the past and the present. For instance, a moving motorcycle of the left part suddenly disappears when it arrives at this area. And yet, at the very part where the motorcycle has disappeared, a car comes to appears. From this, we could witness that the past and the present meet and part from each other. Strictly speaking, this meeting point is the perfect proof for the present.
Her other work of landscape presents repeatedly the landscape of gardens which look similar, alluding Impressionist Monet’s ‘water lilies’ and ‘Rouen Cathedral’. Presented in ten TV monitors, the scenes of the garden densely covered with roses and plants are that of the same place recorded in different periods of time. Each monitor showing time, weather, and the season of her recording is not only the record of time but also the storage of memories. In encounter with this work, viewers can experience that the division of the past and the present becomes blurred and that the garden shown at the present and the memories of the garden come to be merged.
For this show, Jeong, SoYoun renovates the walls of the gallery to suit her work. On this wall painted in black a monitor with a glistening gold-leaf frame around it is hung. The monitor emitting light distinguishes itself in the dark space. This shows the artist’s carefully thought-out plan since the artist dominates the space completely for her show.
In the third part of her work, the artist presents still life which has been a traditional object in art in the form of both real objects and images recorded by a video camera. Still life, compared to landscape, has its unique characteristic that an artist can not only choose whatever is the most effective for her intention and but also arrange them at her own will. Even though a flowerpot, fruits, a clock, and a mirror chosen by Jeong, SoYoun are all the original of her works, it is not easy to find out the difference between the real objects and their images taken by the video camera. And yet, there is still a hint between them. It is the hands of the clocks that are the only moving elements among her stationary objects. The hands in both the real objects and their images move differently from each other. Here the artist’s intention can be sensed. It is that even though they are the same still life, but still there is an undeniable aperture of time between them.
In this way, Jeong, SoYoun relocates the meaning of time in our thinking through daily images. And also she newly expands the realm of two-dimensional painting by her sensibility of the new generation and her video works.

-Weekly Chosun