Through November 12
A satirical expression of reality
In his early work, Ham Jin satirically expressed the reality in which we live by placing ultra-miniature figures alongside actual objects. In his subsequent work, he revealed his own sculptural sensibility through abstract forms rendered in monochromatic black, and more recently he has been producing work in which color emerges in rich variety. In this solo exhibition, <Mother>, he presents three-dimensional works of diverse forms and colors.
The way Ham Jin builds his work is simple. He uses colored clay (polymer clay) as his primary material because it is easy to handle entirely with his own hands, without any special tools. From the past until now, the tool the artist uses to carry out his very small, meticulous work has been his hands. To put it more precisely, it is not the palm or the whole finger but the fingertips. First, he scoops out small amounts of clay in various colors and rubs and blends them together between two fingers. He then spreads this out broadly and attaches it to a basic framework such as a thin wire or a wooden skewer. After that, he shapes the form by repeating this process—attaching and stretching with his hands, and piercing, pushing, and pulling with a tool such as a needle. Finally, he bakes it to set it in place. There are no particular rules to this way of working. The artist simply chooses instinctively which direction to go, following the sculptural form that changes as his fingertips combine with the clay.
This method of making appears, for the artist, to be a way of acquiring an omnipotent power like that of God creating the world. In that sense, the exhibition title <Mother> is read literally as mother, while also carrying the meaning of the Great Mother Goddess (大地母神), a symbol of maternity, vitality, creativity, and nature. His creations, composed of diverse shapes and colors, seem at times like monsters formed from the fusion of many living things, and at other times like organisms such as microbes or cells. Or they may appear to be nothing more than abstract lumps rather than living beings. In this exhibition, moreover, he does not arrange these works as a single connected scene or installation as he did before, but instead displays them as independent objects each placed on its own pedestal. In the exhibition space, the creations he has made are not positioned as members of a substructure forming a single world; rather, each appears as a small yet immense individual being possessing a universe of its own.
▲ Mother