MARKINGS
Markings comprises multiple series of works that seek to present the experience of being. I began working with this theme after undergoing medical treatments in 2004. After seeing the body scans from my treatments, I began to understand how intricate the body is as a biological collaboration between the physical and the intangible movements of the spirit. As an organic structure, the physical body continuously evolves in a dynamic interaction with its environment. This continuous flow suggests to me the complexity of biological, psychological, and emotional flux. The dialog between the internal and external, as well as the physical and spiritual, what we could call an ecology of our being, is the source of my creative process.
After creating work in a range of media including sculpture, installation, and photography, I began experimenting with traditional and contemporary printing technologies, as well as painting, and collage. Recently, I have combined relief wood block printing, painting, and collage into a multi-media process. This multi-media process has resulted in large scale works spanning up to 20 feet in length.
The creation of recent work requires making hundreds of 5×7 inch “drawings” using enamel, polyurethane, shellac, and water. Dipping, pouring, and dripping are methods that allow these diverse materials to interact and to produce drawings with unpredictable organic movements and forms. When creating a work with these drawings I do not have a particular image in mind. Instead, I follow an improvisational process of joining the drawings together in a grid structure. This composite image is then enlarged digitally, transferred to MDF panels, and cut with routers and power rotary tools to serve as the substrate for a deeply embossed, multi-panel woodcut. After printing, I work over the intensely tactile and dimensional surface of the woodcut print with oil pigment sticks, enamel, and gold leaf.
The highly flexible process of constructing and reconstructing the drawings into an aggregate image allows me to discover active biomorphic forms that can be seen as analogs for the movement of essential elements of the body such as water, lymph, cells, blood, and emotions. In this manner, the organic idiosyncrasy of the imagery combines with the underlying grid structure to suggest dynamic, yet structured, movements of life.
KOO KYUNG SOOK