Sung-Pil Chae, Terre anonyme, 2022. Courtesy Mariane Ibrahim.
Mariane Ibrahim is delighted to present Chae Sung-Pil's first solo exhibition at the gallery in Paris, entitled Terres de Rêves. The exhibition will be on view from December 7th, 2023 to February 3rd, 2024.
Chae Sung-Pil (b. 1972, lives and works in Méry-sur-Oise, France) has used soil as the base of his practice since the late 1990s.
During a study trip, with only a sketchbook as equipment, he first experimented with diluted soil as a pigment. Before Chae Sung-Pil's moved to Europe, he used soil as a wash in figurative compositions to disrupt the spatial organization of traditional paintings. The layering of planes and the transcription of depths are partially negated by Sung-Pil’s taste for evenly filled surfaces and the erasure of perspective that results from his choice to set the horizon line outside the frame.
Since then, Chae Sung-Pil's work has been based on how to use these natural pigments, respecting and exploring their symbolism as well as their topical and aesthetic properties. While these soils, which he often collects himself in Korea and elsewhere, have different colors and qualities depending on their origin, they appear to him first and foremost as a primordial, demiurgic material with which his artistic activity is identified by homology.
The theories and techniques used fit into the frameworks developed in China by centuries of pictorial literature. Chae Sung-Pil believes that the creative act must be correlated with the universe's process of formation and constant evolution. He thus recurrently refers to yin 陰 and yang 陽, the opposing poles at the root of Chinese cosmology, whose alternation is manifested by a succession of solids and voids, as well as to the theory of the Five Elements (wuxing, 五行: Earth, Water, Metal, Fire and Wood), whose interactions contribute to the proper functioning of the world.
The materials and processes used make it possible to reconstitute this microcosm. Soil (Earth) is used as pigment; Water washes it away; silvery Metal, in fact pearl powder, forms the base layer, and the Fire is, according to Sung-Pil, generated by the force of the ink, mixed with the crushed clay and itself the result of Wood burning. In addition to the artist's total physical involvement in the creation of his works, there is the interaction of partially uncontrolled materials and natural processes. Chae Sung-Pil applies his colors to the canvases on the floor with large gestures, using brushes he has made himself. Then he runs water over the support, which is tilted to direct the rivulets that carry away the sediment applied to the surface. If necessary, he completes the composition with a sponge to remove superfluous deposits.
More structured and controlled from 2007 onwards, his compositions reveal a strong landscape dimension. Subsequently, the figurative character of the pigment streaks seems to fade away in favor of sowing lines and broad colored waves that tend less to represent a particular orography than to reactualize the creation of the world on canvas.
The selection of green and blue canvases in this exhibition highlights some recent trends in the work of Chae Sung-Pil, who is increasingly asserting his colorist sensibility and his taste for a more gestural approach.
Text "A cosmological painting," written by Mael Bellec, curator at the Musée Cernuschi.
Chae Sung-Pil (b. 1972, lives and works in Méry-sur-Oise, France) has used soil as the base of his practice since the late 1990s.
During a study trip, with only a sketchbook as equipment, he first experimented with diluted soil as a pigment. Before Chae Sung-Pil's moved to Europe, he used soil as a wash in figurative compositions to disrupt the spatial organization of traditional paintings. The layering of planes and the transcription of depths are partially negated by Sung-Pil’s taste for evenly filled surfaces and the erasure of perspective that results from his choice to set the horizon line outside the frame.
Since then, Chae Sung-Pil's work has been based on how to use these natural pigments, respecting and exploring their symbolism as well as their topical and aesthetic properties. While these soils, which he often collects himself in Korea and elsewhere, have different colors and qualities depending on their origin, they appear to him first and foremost as a primordial, demiurgic material with which his artistic activity is identified by homology.
The theories and techniques used fit into the frameworks developed in China by centuries of pictorial literature. Chae Sung-Pil believes that the creative act must be correlated with the universe's process of formation and constant evolution. He thus recurrently refers to yin 陰 and yang 陽, the opposing poles at the root of Chinese cosmology, whose alternation is manifested by a succession of solids and voids, as well as to the theory of the Five Elements (wuxing, 五行: Earth, Water, Metal, Fire and Wood), whose interactions contribute to the proper functioning of the world.
The materials and processes used make it possible to reconstitute this microcosm. Soil (Earth) is used as pigment; Water washes it away; silvery Metal, in fact pearl powder, forms the base layer, and the Fire is, according to Sung-Pil, generated by the force of the ink, mixed with the crushed clay and itself the result of Wood burning. In addition to the artist's total physical involvement in the creation of his works, there is the interaction of partially uncontrolled materials and natural processes. Chae Sung-Pil applies his colors to the canvases on the floor with large gestures, using brushes he has made himself. Then he runs water over the support, which is tilted to direct the rivulets that carry away the sediment applied to the surface. If necessary, he completes the composition with a sponge to remove superfluous deposits.
More structured and controlled from 2007 onwards, his compositions reveal a strong landscape dimension. Subsequently, the figurative character of the pigment streaks seems to fade away in favor of sowing lines and broad colored waves that tend less to represent a particular orography than to reactualize the creation of the world on canvas.
The selection of green and blue canvases in this exhibition highlights some recent trends in the work of Chae Sung-Pil, who is increasingly asserting his colorist sensibility and his taste for a more gestural approach.
Text "A cosmological painting," written by Mael Bellec, curator at the Musée Cernuschi.