Gyunghwa Roh

My works are based on the memories of violence I’ve been watching and experiencing in my life. I was ostracized by my classmates when I was young. The memory was mounted in the inner side and became my identity. Still, I am very sensitive to uncovered violence and irrationality.
 
When I design the world in my art work, experiences and non-existing things that can exist are converged. We can imagine the circle and it exists in the physical space. But we can’t imagine the circle with the rectangular shape and it doesn’t exist. I make my works with the things that can visually imagine, exist and can exist.
All kinds of memory become sediment. On the sediment, existing things make structure. The characteristic of this world is that incidents are not listed in a chronological order.

The sediment mentioned before is different from the sediment in the physical world. The sediment in the physical world are gradually mounted in a time sequence, but the sentiment in the brain has just one layer and cover the surface of the mind. At a time when we remember something if we think about the moment of the memory creation, it’s meaningless. Each memory inside doesn’t have any concept of time. They just happen at once. My work function as a window that shows this world.

My paintings are the collection of drawings and drawings are the collection of stories. I listen to the stories that are considered not important. I make small stories to important ones and record some ordinary people’s life. These recordings are made sometimes in a very realistic manner, and sometimes in an allegorical way. The “Graduation Picture Album Series” is based on my own experience of outcast and consists of real graduation pictures. It seems like a documentary. My recent works are using very simplified humans and symbols to show what I want to say in an allegorical way.

My ultimate goal is drawing paintings without roots. I want my drawing and paintings to be always new. I want to draw paintings floating without roots

Drawings, Painting

Master in Fine Arts of Dongguk University
Bachelor in Fine Arts of Dongguk University