Giving Names to Memories

When examined closely over a period of time, one discovers from Oh Ji-eun’s paintings marks left within a spacetime that is some bent and distorted. Each painting is an image sliced so perfectly that it could even serve as the description of a particular moment in an incident, and this characteristics allow her works to become impressions and summon memories from the past. Most of the scenes Oh’s works depict are drawn from her personal experiences and memories; in other words, the act of creating a painting is Oh’s way of adding the finishing touch to a particular memory she has.

Everyone has his own way of committing a past experience or incident into memory, and every such way is unique to who the person is. Some people write, some make quick drawings, and some take photos. And, especially in the case of photos — which has now become unbelievably ubiquitous to us — they transport scenes from the past into the present with such directness and ease, instantly preserving any given moment as a perfect, impeccable work of taxidermy.

But paintings, made slowly over the period of many days by digesting each day’s moods and feelings, are capable of provisioning an equivalently slow way of reliving the days and moods it was created within. The photo, as a medium, has a surface that is always even and flat. On the other hand, a work of painting has a much larger capacity for impression because its surface can record the ups and downs of a painter’s changing emotions. Oh takes full advantage of this characteristics of painting — the best medium for preserving the brushmarks of an artist who chooses to be a painter — and faithfully delivers the moods she had felt in those past days.

During her studio practice, Oh uses photo in a moderated manner; such that one might call her approach peculiar. Oh uses photos to record the time she spent with certain people or other moments she want to remember and treasure. Later, she creates paintings based on such photographs, but rather than creating representational copies of the photographs, she creates paintings that express her interpretations and intentions. ; in other words, Oh uses photos as a means of staging. However, when the resulting paintings are observed in isolation, they are more akin to 19th century Impressionist works which aspired to express the impression that one sees from a scene, thereby departing from painting’s tradition of producing photographic renderings. Just as how Impressionist painters achieved the feat of accurately reproducing what people actually see from a scene by relying on their personal and subjective perception, Oh’s staged paintings make memories vivid rather than distorting them.

Whereas, if one’s goal is to reproduce memories perfectly, Oh would be better off making depictions that are more detailed and realistic. Yet, memories are, by nature, closely intertwined with emotions, and as the famous line from the film Memento goes, “[Memories] are just an interpretation, they’re not a record,” one must keep in mind that not everything remembered is necessarily factual. The scenes and objects in Oh’s paintings are created by remarkably simple marks that almost seem to be instinctively spat out, but this feature ironically adds more intricacy in conveying the atmosphere and emotions of the day. Likewise, the memories created by the gaps between the objects, atmosphere, and ambience are more about the emotions, atmosphere, and sensations of the moment she is referring to rather than a literal depiction of the scenes. By recreating memories in this way, Oh aims to depict not only what are visible to the eyes, such as scenes and still-lives, but also the unseeable, such as relationships and emotions between and within them. This is the trajectory and aim of her painterly practice, what also may be seen as the process of giving names to memories via the means of paintings.

In contrast, Oh makes rather explicit plans for the colors she is going to use in a painting because color is the most direct element for conveying the mood and emotions in a painting. For instance, she assigns a dominant color to every painting of hers that influences the overall ambience of the work and aids in communicating the landscape of the particular memory. The approach of revealing emotions and feelings in regards to memories is also reflected in her titles which are as metaphorical as a line of poetry or lyrics of a song: for instance, Why Do We Love to Mourn? (2023) and After Some Time, Even a Horrendous Rainy Season Is Remembered as Something Pleasantly Moist (2022). But even the more direct titles such as A Painting of Failed Representation (2018) still remain metaphorical because it refers to the position representation holds in the genre of painting. When naming her works, Oh simply uses sentences that spring to her mind while she is painting, and the practice is akin to poetic recollection, the process of capturing impressions by scanning through one’s memory. In this way, the images sprawled on her canvases become memories with names, and each painting becomes a visual poem read by the eyes.

The Hand Dancing on the Canvas

Oh’s paintings often evoke a dance that has its own, unique rhythm and movement. The subject matter of dance often features in her works — the word dance itself also frequently appears in her work titles — and it can be observed not only in the gestures of the figures in the paintings but also in Oh’s brushwork. In her 2020 solo exhibition, she candidly expressed her inner self with the striking statement, “I always want to dance.” This aspect is partly related to her attitude toward her studio practice, as her spontaneous way of painting on the canvas is not unlike an improvisational dance performance.

However, could painting have correlations with poetry or dance? Poetry often conveys a sense of stillness, while dance is dynamic. However, they share common ground as forms of art that convey various emotions based on creativity.  If poetry can be seen as a dance written with words on paper, then dance can be considered a form of poetry expressed through the body.  Placing painting between poetry and dance, Oh’s artworks could be seen as poems written through dance on the canvas, capturing the essence of both static and dynamic elements in her creative process. Absolutely, just as there are joyful and sad dances, body movements and dance movements can convey emotions, and this applies when expressing emotions on canvas as well.  The rhythm found in poetry and the movements of dance corresponding to music are reflected in her hand and brush moving on the canvas.  It is a characteristic of Oh’s artwork to create a sense of fluidity within the seemingly motionless plane of the painting, allowing for dynamic sensations to exist within her works.

This ability to capture movement and emotion within a static canvas is indeed a distinctive feature of her art, a dance she performs on the canvas.  However, it is not a dance performed strenuously for someone else’s viewing, but a dance done for the sake of the I. These works, stemming from personal narratives rather than being driven by grand discourses or societal commentary, display a sense of freedom in painting.  Oh’s subjective works, filled with her perspective, can actually evoke a sense of empathy in the viewer, connecting on a personal level and resonating with their emotions.

Oh said that the question of “how” to paint is still something she continually considers, and this is deeply connected to her attitude and approach to her ongoing work. “I never wanted to be someone who paints really well.” Having started painting at a young age, Oh seemed to have contemplated the meaning of drawing and painting extensively. Oh’s desire to be a painter, rather than just an artist, reflects her view of drawing and painting as joyful and playful acts in themselves.  The primary desire here, “to draw,” is spontaneous and an immediate bodily response, closely related to dance.  In the end, Oh’s paintings are likely no different from a dance performed by her hand on the canvas, driven by the desire to express herself.

Kim Yujin

Curator, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Korea

Venue Provided : Facility of Contemporary Arts in Palbok