Goryeo 

2017

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‘Goryeo’ portrays landscapes that are at once worldly and Korean, opening a dialogue that addresses the symbiosis between traditional conservatism and avant-garde zeitgeist.

 

Paintings depict overlooked hinterlands in a state between entropy and negentropy that blur into the background of the everyday milieu. A fusion of painting languages, traditional applications and contemporary industrial gradients have been employed to represent the creative renaissance of a country in transition.

 

Replete motifs are repeated in a strategic method that requires the viewer to contemplate the works in order for signs and signified components to reveal themselves.

 

Locations were photographed and experienced by myself during a visit as an artist ambassador in 2016 for the UKYA. Paintings portend to express an intimate insight into the essence of contemporary Korea through foreign eyes.

 

The modern English exonym ‘Korea’ derives from the 5th century Kingdom named ‘Goryeo’. 

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