Things Which Can Be Seen Only If You Should Stop
By
Mira Song
Emily Carr University of Art and Design
A THESIS ESSAY SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTERS OF APPLIED ART
In
Visual Arts
EMILY CARR UNIVERSITY OF ART + DESIGN
2013
©Mira Song, 2013
ii
Abstract
This thesis aims to provide a context in which to situate my interdisciplinary art practice
concerned with painting that addresses architecture. The paper explores my childhood memory
of space and contemplation as themes that are essential in shaping my art practice as a whole,
but also as my way of relating to art, nature, and the built environments such as parks and
gardens. By reflecting on and conflating historical, cultural and philosophical contexts from a
Western and Asian perspective, I will investigate how my work has been transformed through
my personal journey from Korea to Canada, and how my practice can be situated at the
intersection between art and architecture and the space between the real and surreal.
Chapter one will examine my childhood memory of looking at a little bonsai pot in my family
garden, the catalyst to create my own art work amidst the realization of what I will refer to here
as an “innerscape”. In this section, I will also introduce four predominant motifs in my artwork
triggered by this childhood experience: Imagination, Space, Scale and Nature. In the following
chapters, I will investigate these four themes by mirroring each in a relevant series of works:
Water Series, City Series, Inventory of Architectural Forms and Pebble Series. The critical works
Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard and Space and Place by Yi-Fu Tuan will provide
underpinning theories as a bridge to connect these chapters together. The final chapter, “Things
Which Can Be Seen Only If You Should Stop” will reflect on my experience of co-existing
between eastern and western culture. In addition, it will discuss my research, aesthetic
sensibilities and the philosophical context in which my artistic process operates. Through an
iii
investigation of different historical and theoretical backgrounds of contemplation in Asian
perspective, I will provide a theoretical context for the processes that constitute my practice.
iv
Table of Contents
Abstract ……………………………………………………………….……….……………………………………….…………. ii
Table of Contents ……………………………………………………......………………………………………….………. iv
List of Images …………………………………………….…………………….................................................… v
Acknowledgements …………………………….………………………......….……………………………………..…… vii
Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…..…. 1
Memory: Walking through Innerscape for Contemplation
I.
Imagination ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….8
Space between the Real and the Surreal
Water Series
II.
Space ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…17
Intersecting between Architecture and Art
City Series
III.
Scale
Scale as a Miniature and Intimate Immensity ……………….…………………………………….………28
Inventory of Architectural Forms
IV.
Nature …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…….40
Things Which Can Be Seen Only If You Should Stop
Pebble Series
Conclusion
The Resonant Harmony between Eastern and Western Painting and Perspective…..…50
Works Cited ………………………………………………………..….….……...……………………………………………..54
Bibliography …………………………………………………..…………..…..…….………………………………………....55
v
List of Figures
Fig. 1- Mira Park (2006) bench in the bonsai pot, Digital Image
Fig. 2- Framed Space (2007). Oil and Pencil on Canvas. 118 x 84cm
Fig. 3- Site Plan for Water Series (2011). Mixed Media on Paper. 400x169cm
Fig. 4- Water Series: Paintings #1-3 (2010-2012). Oil, Pencil and Collage on Paper. 127×102cm
Fig. 5- Water Series: Drawings (2010-2011). Mixed Media on Paper. Various Size
Fig. 6- Conceptual Garden Design 1. (2012): Garden to stimulate five senses
Fig. 7- A Case Study Garden Design Plan and Elevation (2012): Garden Design at 6629 Balsam
Street, Vancouver, BC for the virtual client Susan Koelink
Fig. 8- City Series: Painting #1 #2 (2011). Oil and Pencil on Canvas, 72×100cm
Fig 9- City Series: Sculpture Installation view (2011-2012)
Fig 10- City Series: Drawings, (2011). Mixed Media on Paper, 23×30.5 cm
Fig. 11- City Series: Book Project (2012)
Fig. 12- Inventory of architectural forms (2012). Mixed Media
Fig. 13- Detail from Inventory of Architectural Forms (2011-2012)
Fig. 14- Drawings from Inventory of architectural forms (2012). Illustrator file and Mixed media
Fig. 15- Drawings from Inventory of Architectural Forms installation View (2012)
Fig. 16- (Right) Hello, Martha (2010). Oil on Canvas 127×102.5cm
Fig. 17- Documentation of a pebble path in the park in Seoul; this view was taken from a bench
in a park where I used to sit to ponder and rest.
Fig. 18- Slow, Focus, and Repeat…Pebble Series: Painting # 1 (2012).Oil on Canvas. 118 X 122cm
vi
Fig. 19- Detail from Pebble Series: Painting # 1 (2012)
Fig. 20- Sculptural installation: Pebble Series (2012)
Fig. 21- Final Project in MAA Program.
Things which can be seen only if we should stop (2013). Oil on Canvas. 240x109cm
vii
Acknowledgements
I would like to first thank my supervisor Ingrid Koenig who always provided me with insightful,
generous and thoughtful support in order for me to achieve a greater understanding of my
practice. Thank you also to Professor Phil Smith, Dr. Chris Jones and Keith Wallace who gave
critical refection and ideas throughout my thesis writing period and presentation. I would also
like to thank my peers for their assistance with my writing processes: Adam Stenhouse, Maegan
Elise, and Carol Tsang. This thesis would not have been possible without their insight. Thank you
to the talented and great artists and mentors who shared their experience and ideas through
studio visits: Carol Saywer, David Khang, Neil Campbell, Renee Van Halm and Ben Reeves.
Lastly, special thanks to my family and friends in Seoul: Kimin Park, Soonjoo Yi and Pro
Soocheon Jeon. Their warm hearts and kind advice will always guide me as an artist and a
person.
1
Introduction
Memory_ Walking Through Innerscape for Contemplation
In this section, I focus on describing where my motivation came from and how it has been applied to
my art works over time. By illustrating how my early works stemmed from my childhood memory, I
introduce four motifs – Imagination, Nature, Space, and Scale – as crucial catalysts of my practice. By
exploring what kind of space I see and desire to see in my memory, I examine the historical and
theoretical context of these spaces within the Western and Eastern notions of parks and
contemplation.
We are always surrounded by space that is limited and bounded, but everyone may have
their own special space that is meaningful to them. To me, one of these spaces was a little
bonsai pot in my family garden.
Every time I looked at this one particular small pot, it led me into a tangled world with
beautiful figures and colorful natural elements mixed with strange and oddly shaped things. I
found a kind of playground inside this small world. I always imagined myself being miniaturized
inside the pot, and I imagined a “park” while watching this small bonsai tree. However, the
physical limitation of this space always conflicted with my desire to explore this world. I could
not go into this space, and the process of entering it existed only in my imagination. For me, this
conflict became a catalyst for creating my own works in that I wanted to explore these kinds of
spaces through painting and installation art.
2
Philosopher and geographer Yi-Fu Tuan argues in his book Space and Place: The Perspective
of Experience that, through the veil of memory, a childhood experience of nature retains a
certain type of magic that often seems more intense than that of an adult:
In relating the passage of time to the experience of place it is obviously necessary to
take the human life cycle into account: ten years in childhood are not the same as ten
years in youth or manhood. The child knows the world more sensuously than does the
adult. This is one reason why the adult cannot go home again. This is also one reason
why a native citizen knows his country in a way that cannot be duplicated by a
naturalized citizen who has grown up elsewhere. (185)
Tuan suggests that perception in childhood is amplified as a result of the way we experience
time and space at this age. The wonderment of my experience with the bonsai tree at a young
age has become a touchstone in my practice. My interest in scale – and the miniature world of
the bonsai tree - has informed the juxtaposition between the real and the surreal that is evident
within that practice. My early works attempted to represent these intense memories from
nature into more concrete images. From a third person perspective, both the paintings and
photos aim to emphasize my experience of watching these spaces, observing and spectating.
My photo works, for example, explored the paradoxical relationship of imagining a big park
around a small bonsai tree. I made a miniature bench (size 3 x 1 x 0.8cm) out of wooden
chopsticks and oil paint, put it inside a pot, and took a picture, zooming in as much as possible
(Fig1). Through the camera lens, I was able to capture this blurry wonderment which now exists
only in my childhood memories. This re-captured scenery inspired the expansion of my oeuvre
into an interdisciplinary practice that includes painting, sculpture, and architecture.
3
Fig. 1- Mira Park (2006) bench in the bonsai pot, Digital Image.
In the Poetics of Space: The Classic Look at How We Experience Intimate Places, (1958), Gaston
Bachelard describes how a botanist uses a magnifying glass to recapture the magic of youth. By
gazing at this miniature world through a lens he is granted access to an entire world of
undiscovered space:
The man with the magnifying glass - quite simply - bars the every-day world. He is a
fresh eye before a new object. The botanist's magnifying glass is youth recaptured. It
gives him back the enlarging gaze of a child. With this glass in his hand, he returns to
4
the garden, where children see enlarged. Thus the minuscule, a narrow gate, opens up
an entire world. The details of a thing can be the sign of a new world which, like all
worlds, contains the attributes of greatness. Miniature is one of the refuges of
greatness. (155)
For Bachelard the botanist’s magnifying glass opens up an entire world of greatness by
enlarging his gaze of the minuscule. This “narrow gate” that grants the botanist access into the
miniscule resonates with my childhood memory of gazing at the small Bonsai world. Like
Bachelard describes the miniature, for me, it became a refuge for rest and contemplation. My
art practice attempts to articulate these experiences and perceptions using a variety of
mediums to explore these memories from different angles. By using an architectural approach
to painting I recreate my childhood experience of space through an imaginative interpretation
of this memory. An example of this process is illustrated in Fig.2 Framed Space.
Fig. 2- Framed Space (2007). Oil and Pencil on Canvas. 118 x 84cm
5
This work has led me to a pivotal point in my practice where I feel I must question how
I articulate my process in relation to the miniature. Why did I imagine something like a bench in
this enlarged world? And through harmonizing a constructed object with an intimate natural
space, how could I then engage in this place by painting and re-appropriating it? My childhood
was largely devoted to relaxing and resting alongside miniature trees in my garden. Through
these potted miniature trees, I imagined this place expanding into parks.
For me, therefore, the notion of a park was more concerned with the psychological
aspect of resting – an intimate and personal innerscape to contemplate and play within one’s
own imagination. With this in mind, the idea of a park with all its historical implications, where
nature and architecture coexist, became a crucial resource for the theoretical positioning of my
practice as an inner and outer scape for contemplation.
In the Western world, the notion of the public park was generated in the eighteenth
century; prior to this era, protected areas of landscaped nature were reserved as private hunting
grounds and gardens, and later as status symbols surrounding the mansions and country homes
of the wealthy.1 However, during the Industrial Revolution, parks became more egalitarian
spaces for urbanites. In contemporary cities, parks are protected natural or semi-natural spaces
for human recreation and enjoyment. Public parks such as New York’s Central Park and Prospect
1
The Gardens of Versailles, which are part of the Palace of Versailles located 12 miles outside of Paris, are an
example of how gardens were used as a symbol of wealth and political power in history. The Gardens of Versailles
were created under Louis XIV, France's self-styled 'Sun King', who managed every stage of construction. Under the
king’s direction the gardens were to be used, adapted, altered and extended as his royal enthusiasms dictated, and
kept pace with every extension of the king’s power by celebrating every conquest. At Versailles, Louis XIV created
not just Europe’s most lavish palace but also the most extensive gardens the Western world had ever seen.
(Thompson 13-18)
6
Park (built in 1858 and 1867 respectively) are examples of how parks are conceived in modern
cities. Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed these parks as places of refuge from
chaotic urban life. The modern park in Asia also comes as a result of a similar historical
circumstance; however, in Asia, parks have a slightly different significance in terms of resting. In
my practice, the notion of “park” may be more closely engaged with the Chinese word for
resting (休息; also used in Korean) rather than the literal definition of “park” in the Western
world. This word has evolved over time from earlier pictorial characters, by the combination of
人(human), 木(tree), 自(oneself) and 心(mind). Therefore, 休息(resting) is the image of a
human leaning on a tree and taking time to “watch the mind”. In Chinese characters, the
definition of resting means not only physical relaxation, but also time to reflect on oneself. In my
works, this Asian perspective – restfulness of the mind – is a crucial notion. My interest in a park
is not limited to the notion of a protected environment containing natural elements; it also
includes the contemplative effects of rest(休息). My thesis, therefore, when discussing parks
and architectural spaces, focuses on the notion of a protected environment containing natural
and architectural elements but it also extends further to include the psychological dimension of
the effects of rest(休息). In other words, it is these inner and outer existential spaces that
interest me and inform my art practice.
In the following chapters, I will examine how these inner and outer existential spaces,
triggered by memory, are explored in my paintings, sculpture and architectural projects through
four predominant motifs. These motifs include imagination, nature, space, and scale. By
examining my series of works, all created from this same perspective, each chapter explores
7
these different motifs as individual ways of provoking contemplation for myself and within the
hypothetical viewer. In the Poetics of Space Bachelard suggests this kind of motionless but
imaginative moment when contemplation takes over:
Immensity is within ourselves. It is attached to a sort of expansion of being that life
curbs and caution arrests, but which starts again when we are alone. As soon as we
become motionless, we are elsewhere; we are dreaming in a world that is immense.
Indeed, immensity is the movement of motionless man. It is one of the dynamic
characteristics of quiet daydreaming. (184)
Just as my artwork initially stemmed from the paradoxical relationship of entering a miniature
scene and imagining an entire world there, by walking through each chapter I hope my thesis
will act as a guide to entering this type of surreal space - dissolving our inner barrier between
the visible and invisible as a way to access the immensity within ourselves.
9
I.
Imagination
Space between the Real and the Surreal: Water Series
In perception, one takes information from the outside world, such as light, or sound
waves, and finds meaning in it, using memory and perceptual processes. In
imagination, it works in reverse. Imagery is created from the memory. This is perhaps
clearest in dreaming, where our minds churn up an entire virtual reality for us to
experience when we sleep. But imagination is used in a whole variety of cognitive
processes, including planning, hypothetical reasoning, picturing things in the past or
the future, comprehending language, and, of course, in design and creativity in
engineering and the arts.
Jim Davies 2, “What Imagination Is”
In common with many artists, my experience of imagination can be described as a vehicle
associated with physical and metaphysical spaces, operating to create the art work. In this
chapter, I explore the possibility of experiencing a space between the real and the surreal as an
attempt to access the immensity within ourselves. By examining this idea through the paintings
in Water Series, I articulate how the work has evolved out of my experience with the miniature
into an expanded practice that imagines and designs immense spaces.
Picture a small tea kettle wherein the potential for an immense space exists, perhaps a
2
In the Ph.D. Jim Davies is the Director of the Science Imagination Laboratory at Carleton University. In the
Psychology Today Magazine, he discusses the notion of imagination in the article titled “What Imagination Is:
Creativity or mental images?”
10
large flowing water park? Maybe this space could be accessed better through a two
dimensional cross-section in a painting or drawing? Water Series was initiated from this simple
question based on my experience. The question spurred a process by which I bring this
imaginary space into reality as portrayed in the series. By focusing on my imagined space of the
inside of a small tea kettle, I design and express an internal space with curved lines using the
shape of the kettle and water as motifs. Through this process, I intend to explore both
abstractive and formative shapes of water in immense space as an attempt to invoke a
contemplative and peaceful feeling from this space.
My initial inspiration of water and the tea kettle as a metaphor for contemplative space
is associated with my research of the ‘tea ceremony’; it is also called ‘teaism’ 3. In Eastern Asia,
teaism is considered as a kind of ‘ritual retreat’ 4 to promote harmony with nature, humanity
and mind beyond the mundane world. Since the sixteenth century in Japan, this idea is directly
influenced by architectural forms called ‘tea house’ or ‘tea–room’ for the purpose of teagathering. For instance, the “roji” (a path in the urban Japanese garden) is often connected with
the tea house whose purpose is to calm the guest into a state of contemplation. At the end of
3
“In China, in the eighth century, it entered the realm of poetry as one of the polite amusements. The fifteenth
century saw Japan ennoble it into a religion of estheticism— Teaism. Teaism is a cult founded on the adoration of
the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence. It inculcates purity and harmony, the mystery of
mutual charity, the romanticism of the social order. It is essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as it is a tender
attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life.” (Okakura 1)
4
In Contemporary Landscapes of Contemplation, Marc Treib introduces the idea of the tea ceremony by referring to
“ritual retreat”. He describes, “The tea ceremony offered a ritual retreat from the cares and complexities of the
mundane world. But it also represented an advance into a realm of much higher aesthetic and spiritual pursuits”
(Treib 25).
11
roji, people arrive in a calmed space to prepare tea while the simplicity5 of the architectural
forms is considered as an intentional emptiness, yet possible to be filled up with our artistic
spirit and imagination. Here, I am interested in how this relationship between a garden, a tea
kettle, flowing water (maybe connected to the more auditory sense when we hear the pouring
of tea) and a space could function as a metaphor for contemplation in this culture. In The Book
of Tea Kakuzo Okakura states, “The simplicity of the tea-room and its freedom from vulgarity
make it truly a sanctuary from the vexations of the outer world. There and there alone one can
consecrate himself to undisturbed adoration of the beautiful’ (44). He describes this simplicity
as ‘Purposely leaving something unfinished for the pay of the imagination to complete’ (34). In
my work, this emptiness may become a platform to open up the immense flowing water space
inside the tea kettle.
Although not a direct influence on the Water Series, this idea describes the creation of
space for my experience in the garden, tearoom, and tea kettle. Importantly the contemplative
mood generated from this ceremony may facilitate the creation of Bachelard’s ‘immense’ space
inside the tea kettle embodying my imagination. Okakura is describing the creation of the place
Bachelard departs from. But Bachelard also describes the influence and effects of imagination
on the individual through the concept of the immensity. He states:
5
“The tea-room is unimpressive in appearance. It is smaller than the smallest of Japanese houses, while
the materials used in its construction are in-tended to give the suggestion of refined poverty. Yet we
must remember that all this is the result of profound artistic forethought, and that the details have been
worked out with care perhaps even greater than that expended on the building of the richest palaces
and temples.” (Okakura 34-35)
12
Since immense is not an object, a phenomenology of immense would refer us directly to
our imagining consciousness. In analyzing images of immensity, we should realize within
ourselves the pure being of pure imagination. It then becomes clear that works of art
are the by-products of this existentialism of the imagining being. In this direction of
daydreams of immensity, the real product is consciousness of enlargement. We feel that
we have been promoted to the dignity of the admiring being. (18)
Following Bachelard’s idea, by gazing at the inner space of a kettle and imagining flowing water
within it, visualizing this space through a series of works becomes the process that I use to
approach my own process. If works of art are the by-products of “this existentialism of the
imagining being”, I believe these by-products can be perpetuated and resonated through
further works of art as a way of accessing that free and imaginative state of being.
As for Davies’ notion of imagination which I referred to in the beginning of this chapter,
imagination is a crucial vehicle in generating “a whole variety of cognitive processes” in art. This
perspective may be related to how the viewer engages with these forms of imagery and what
those limits are for the artist. In my practice, imagination, a concept bound up with memory,
can create space within one’s mind, and can be translated onto canvas. Such a space, once
actualized and experienced, can then in turn create an imaginative response within the viewer.
Therefore, generating this communicative and creative event may be at the center of my
artistic production. Through the Water Series, that focuses on my perception of the peaceful
and calm feeling derived from a flowing water space, I investigate this intention to deliberately
evoke an imagined space between the real and the surreal.
13
Water Series
The Water Series consists of three components: a site-plan (collage drawing with mixed
media), paintings and drawings. These components are closely related to each other as
fragmented parts of a larger work. For example, in the first component of this work Plan for
Water Series, I design a map of the water space creating a viewing platform. Curved lines and
the shape of the kettle is used to contain the flowing water space inside the vessel. By drawing
grid lines to simulate the latitude-longitude grid and geometrical scale of a map I create a visual
representation of the imagined immense space. In keeping with this traditional western
depiction of space I attach small images of each painting in the Water Series (Water Series:
Painting # 1-4) as a part of the collage to guide the viewer, like signposts, through the paintings.
Additionally this acts as a way to connect the paintings and Site Plan so that they can relate to
each other when they are installed in a gallery setting.
Fig. 3- Site Plan for Water Series (2011). Mixed Media on Paper. 400x169cm
14
The paintings and drawings in the series show a more detailed view and an altered
perception regarding this water space. To evoke a contemplative and peaceful feeling from
water in this series and for generating spatial images through each painting, I use a restricted
set of colors (blue, green, and dark yellow) which were inspired by the kettle and my sensory
experience of water. Certain shapes (organic and curved lines from a kettle) and patterns are
also presented to evoke a sense of consistency through this collage-like landscape. Each
painting describes a re-framed view of this imagined water space with architectural elements
such as a pond, fountain, drafting lines and framed structures.
Through paintings, the imaginary space is established by two formal elements: the
concrete line drawing and the inclusion of organic shapes. Watercolor technique is used to
emphasize the transparent nature of water where colours pierce through paper and spread to
embody its own spatial awareness. The concise and concrete lines then become a boundary
that embodies water: the collage as a dreamscape of my utopian ideal. Through these
techniques, I intend to capture a view of this imaginary space from different angles through
each painting.
Fig. 4- Water Series: Paintings #1-3 (2010-2012). Oil, Pencil and Collage on Paper. 127×102cm
15
In the last components, the drawings, I examine how this concept has been developed
and expanded through the tracing and deconstructing of shapes, color, and texture. The design
process allows for the transformation of the original motif through a re-negotiating of preestablished language inherent within an architectural dialect. In simultaneously working with
the sketch, the collage drawings, modeling, drafting, blueprint, and researching of different
expressions of water from historical garden design drawings, I try to access this flowing water
space in different ways, not only through a purely representational manner though painting,
but also by designing and exploring an immense space through the lens of an architect.
Fig. 5- Water Series: Drawings (2010-2011). Mixed Media on Paper. Various Size
16
Using these types of motifs in the designing of space has led to some crucial shifts in my
practice. First, it directed a new strategy of applying architectural drawings to my work as a way
to move beyond traditional types of landscape and to design a space that emphasized
imagination and psychological space. Second, the process has challenged me to articulate my
own ideal space into a new hybrid structure that amalgamates art, architecture, and design
arriving at a practice where the real and the surreal are blurred. In my practice these questions
became a significant turning point; they have expanded not only the research behind my formal
paintings and drawings, but also inform relevant visual components such as drawing, collage,
and three dimensional modeling inspired by the field of architecture. Overall this work aims to
integrate methodological threads that span diverse fields of cultural production in order to
explore an interdisciplinary practice between art and architecture, a subject that will be
discussed further in the next two chapters.
18
II.
Space
Intersecting between Architecture and Art: City Series
In the next two chapters, I explore predominant motifs ‘Space’ and ‘Scale’ in my works by
negotiating the pre-established language of architecture as a more practical or tangible
methodology. Relevant to this methodology, I refer to artists or landscape architects who work at
the intersection of architecture and art such as Carlos Martinez, Martha Schwartz, Dan Graham,
and Maya Lin. By reflecting on my exploration and works over the past two years, I demonstrate
my journey of transition from two dimensional to three dimensional work, and from art to
architecture, which was essentially my aspiration in the Master’s program.
When I started this research effort , I had two primary goals. The first was to apply
concepts of two-dimensional representation into three-dimensional space through exploring
sculptural installation and architectural models. The second was to relate this initial exploration
to create a hybrid of architectural and natural elements in my paintings and drawings. As I
described in the previous chapter, my interest in architecture as a tangible methodology to
express space became one of the crucial controlling themes in my practice beyond painting. In
the next two chapters, “Space: Intersecting between Architecture and Art”, and “Scale:
Miniature and Intimate Immensity”, I examine how these two intentions have been explored
over two years within my practice by mirroring each in a relevant series of works: City Series
and Inventory of Architectural Forms.
I am interested specifically in the spatial awareness inherent within the language of
19
architecture. The act of painting translates this architectural language into an alternative form
of speech, when then exists in physical space, but also evokes another awareness of space. My
early paintings, catalyzed by memory, might be more about physical and metaphysical
perceptions of space. I focused on observing a space and re-appropriating this space onto
canvas in hopes of creating imaginative and contemplative images. As an alternative to relying
solely on memory, the language of architecture, as a pre-established tool, opens up the
possibility to more consciously design these spaces where I desire to see them implemented. In
this vein, I have focused on the design process in the field of architecture, and broadened
communications with and research into urban designers and architects. This has become my
process in order to resolve how I could situate an interdisciplinary practice within
contemporary art. It has been a challenging but inevitable step as my practice continues to
expand.
I have been investigating interdisciplinary artists and architects such as Dan Graham,
Martha Schwartz, and Maya Lin who create an interplay between architectural and natural
elements6. These were important references to which I could relate my interest in historical and
theoretical relationships between architecture, art, and space. My two years of this
investigation time was not sufficient for me to assimilate all the design processes in this field.
However, it was enough not only to experience their design processes as a whole, but also to
6
In relation to this journey, during the Applied Master’s program, I completed the Basics of Architectural Design
and Architectural Modeling courses in Continuing Studies at Emily Carr University over 2011, and a certificate in
Garden Design at UBC as my internship from March to August 2012.
20
learn different approaches toward space which could then be applied to my studio practice
from various perspectives. If art works are self-portraits that reflect who I am in a personal and
subjective way, architecture may be more of an objective manifestation of another person who
will live in the building and stay in the garden. For me, this perspective seems to suggest a
different way of thinking about method which I was not able to engage in as a painter.
Fig.6- Conceptual Garden Design 1. (2012): Garden to stimulate five senses.
Fig. 7- A Case Study Garden Design Plan and Elevation (2012): Garden Design at 6629 Balsam Street,
Vancouver, BC for the virtual client Susan Koelink
21
Regarding this relationship, Maya Lin, a prominent architect and environmental artist, is a good
example in terms of identifying her position in the realm of both art and architecture. In her
book Boundaries, she speaks about this balance through a reflection on analogical differences
between poetry and prose in terms of how she creatively harmonizes the two different
components in her life:
My work exists somewhere between art and architecture. I never consciously tried to
separate the two. Instead, as I have produced both the art and architectural works, they
have taken shape quite differently from one another… and I have found that the
creative process I undertake to create these works is likewise different. I have often said
the difference between art and architecture can be likened to the differences between
poetry and prose, and this analogy reflects not just the end result but the creative
process one goes through in the making of the work. (4:44)
Just as she never consciously tried to separate these two realms in her life, I intend to explore
this boundary as an artist and to cross the threshold somewhere between art and architecture.
In order to explore this threshold more fully, I try not to set a kind of limitation between two
and three dimensional architecture and fine art. Like a built-in metamorphosis, this hybrid is
constantly broken down and re- created through different bodies of works such as paintings,
drawings, collage, sculptural installation, and book making. City Series is formulated within this
practice. The work displays a built-in metamorphosis explored through various approaches
beyond my previous work which focused only on painting. This chapter provides a reflective
moment in order to connect all these fragmented elements together through the City Series.
22
City Series
City Series references the landscape design project entitled City Lounge by Carlos
Martinez + Pipilotti Rist. City Lounge is an outdoor space in the center of St. Gallen, Switzerland
that was designed by Carlos Martinez in collaboration with the artist Pipilotti Rist for a design
competition in 2005. The idea was to create a public living room where small streets in the
central city have been covered with red rubber, traffic signals are placed like toy-objects, and
illumination comes from light bubbles. In my piece, I explore my impressions and visual
inspirations of the city, focusing on architectural environments such as glass, color, light, and
parks. For this project, I specifically focused on Martinez’s concept of a public space as a living
room.7 This seemed related to my notion of a park in that I refer to it as an intimate and
exclusive personal space inside the open and inclusive public space: by negotiating the pre-
Carlos Martinez discusses this concept of a living room in his interview with www.kopenhagen.dk in December
7
2007.
In the city everything moves very fast. It is normally a place where you cannot relax. City lounge is a
place where you can relax. An example is that when you make a chair - a conventional chair - you have
almost only one way you can sit. If you are two sitting each on one chair - the dynamic of the
conversation is different than if you sit on seats as in City lounge where you can move your body freely
simply because it is designed to make you relax. City lounge is a place where you can relax. The red
color and the softness and the light - everything included is made to make you slow down and
relax…Interestingly for us it is a social component - a public space. Not your space - not my space. And
people feel responsible as if it's their own private area. (Martinez)
http://www.kopenhagen.dk/interviews/interviews/interviews_2007/interview_pipilotti_rist_and_carlos_martinez/
23
established language of architecture, I am exploring a new artistic reality by designing spaces
through paintings and architectural models.
The first components of this series are paintings and sculptures. The paintings in City
Series consist of two different bodies of work: one is a triptych of paintings (each 72 x 100 cm
on canvas, using oil, glossy media and overlapping architectural drawings with thin pencil lines
on the surface), and the other consists of three monochromatic paintings (26.5-70 x 40-65cm)
on shaped canvas that echo and evoke the geometry of architecture in my triptych. These sets
of paintings can be flexibly installed depending on the size of the wall. In the first series, the
triptych paintings, I focus on expressing the atmosphere of the architectural environment such
as glass, color, light and imaginative, provocative night views of the city as in the City Lounge
project. I depict this idea by focusing on architectural forms of buildings and using different
kinds of blue
such as sky blue, greenish blue, and indigo) as well as drafting pencil lines. The
shades of blue are translucently layered and mixed with the glossy media, which can show all
layers of the painstaking process of painting and emphasize the shiny and glossy characteristic
of glass buildings at night.
24
Fig. 8- City Series: Painting #1 #2 (2011). Oil and Pencil on Canvas, 72×100 cm
This perception is also sustained within the sculptures. Here I focus on conveying an
architectural structure of the building and illuminating the blimp-shaped light ball through
three dimensional forms. By using translucent material such as wax and soap to emphasize the
organic and glossy surface of light balls and buildings, I explore how my perception of this view
can be realized in different ways through a three dimensional installation.
Fig. 9- City Series: Sculpture Installation View (2011-2012)
25
Another component of my City Series consists of ten collage drawings: each 23×30.5 cm,
using different kinds of translucent papers, color papers, pencil, oils, and photographic images.
Referring to various images from City Lounge (drafting, blue-prints, photographic views, design
concepts, articles and so on) and re-appropriating them by overlapping my painted images in
City Series, I attempt to recreate fragmented and distorted spatial images from urban spaces in
the hope of creating a dialogue between painting and drawing. For example, one of the triptych
paintings (City Series: Painting 2) is directly referred to by the composition of one of the
drawings. This dialogue is further emphasized by the installation of these two components
together when exhibited in a gallery space.
Fig. 10- City Series: Drawings, (2011). Mixed Media on Paper, 23×30.5 cm
The final component of this project is a sculptural book, functioning as a form of
architecture or sculptural installation, which highlights these relationships between painting,
drawing, and architectural elements in the City Series. The form of this book revolves around
three main concepts: a folded structure with four pop-up components cut and folded into
rectangular shapes, evoking three-dimensional buildings; a double-sided structure with
attached images (a view of the City Lounge project and images related to my paintings and
26
drawings from the City Series); and the shape of the graphic title of the City Series which is diecut through the entire form. Through this structural hybrid that includes photos, paintings, and
drawings of the series and the application of three dimensional structures in the book, I
attempted to speak to the tensions in my work where I explore a relational process between
painting and sculpture: a kind of telescoping of past and futures, expansions and contractions
of scale, and of cross disciplinary thinking (painting, architecture, and book-making). Just as the
graphic title of the City Series cuts through the piece as a whole, this book is intended to
function as a guide book for the viewer to further combine the entire elements of the series.
Fig.11- City Series: Book Project (2012)
27
The creative collaboration and contemplative mood of the place in City Lounge became
an inspiration for City Series. If the motif for Water Series was based on my personal
imagination of a tea kettle, then the article about Martinez’s and Rist’s design project, and its
imaginative and provocative views of a city space, is a more tangible resource for me. By deconstructing and re-appropriating space through drawings, paintings, sculptures and book form,
this tangibility allows me to focus on both the investigation of the question of form itself and
the various attendant visual forms. In the following chapter, I will investigate how this
manifestation is explored based on my third motif - scale.
29
III.
Scale
Scale as Miniature and Intimate Immensity: Inventory of Architectural Forms
Miniature is an exercise that has metaphysical freshness; it allows us to be world conscious at
slight risk. And how restful this exercise on a dominated world can be! For miniature rests us
without ever putting us to sleep. Here the imagination is both vigilant and content.
Gaston Bachelard (161)
Miniature in particular is fundamental to my practice. Representing the two and three
dimensional, the organic and the architectural, the imaginary and the provocative, along with
my observations on miniature objects (which are often neglected spaces) have all become
particularly interesting aspects for inquiry. These spaces can be as simple as a photograph’s
interior, the inside of a tea kettle, under a bonsai, or the seemingly finite surface area of a
pebble (to be discussed next chapter) – repeated at infinitum and given a new life. My work
explores this intimate and complex scenery that is in a constant state of flux – a built-in
metamorphosis similar to our imagination. Imagining the microscopic becoming enormous and
the macroscopic becoming small is one of the fundamental ideas of my work. This process
allows me to express a variety of sensory experiences within an unconventional set of terms
that exists somewhere between the real and the surreal, space and imagination. A link can be
made between Bachelard’s term “metaphysical freshness” and the process by which the micro
becomes macro in my artwork. Like Bachelard’s idea of restfulness this process is a type of
meditation on an alternative space – creating becomes an act of building a refuge.
30
In exploring architecture as a creative medium, I became interested in the way
miniaturized architectural models could be unfolded into creative forms of space. The work
Inventory of Architectural Form was initiated from this research. Through an investigation of
architectural forms and different materials, that I experimented with during an architectural
modeling course, I was able to realize my interest in scale between the miniature (and intimate)
and the immense. If the previous chapter “Space” is about my intent to negotiate architectural
techniques through differing two dimensional and three dimensional works, then Inventory of
Architectural Form is more focused on examining how a space is framed in terms of the
miniature, as influenced by architectural model making, and how this framed space expands to
create an immense space through my art works.
31
Inventory of Architectural Forms
Fig. 12- Inventory of architectural forms (2011-2012). Wood, Soap, Wax and Polymer Clay
My architectural sculptures are experiments made of wood, wax, and translucent soap. By
sanding and cutting found pieces of wood, arbitrarily, I explore form and shape in different
materials. At the same time, I focus on refining my technical skills in sculpture through these
created forms. I install all these components on a small plywood panel, and explore how each
form evokes an architectural structure or topographical image of the miniature. By installing
these sculptural pieces as if they were in the context of the grid of the city, an association can
be made with actual architectural maquettes. This tension between sculpture and architectural
modeling refers to the idea of the microcosmic world in this form of “architectural” sculpture.
32
The process used in Inventory of Architectural forms is reminiscent of Maya Lin’s
installations in that she has a similar approach with material and content. She explores
architectural elements, organic forms, tactile qualities and geometrical frames as I do in my
practice. Lin’s desire to “create an intimate dialogue with the viewer, to allow a place of
contemplation . . . [with] a reliance on time, memory. . . passage or journey” (2:03) resonates
with my own methodology for creating work. I am especially motivated by her intuitive and
aesthetical response to various shifts in color, texture, shape, and scale, from natural to
unnatural elements. In the Maya Lin Systemic Landscape, the author Richard Andrews speaks
about these aspects by referring to Rebecca Solnit’s essay on the subject of landscape in recent
art. She states:
Installation brings many of these issues into environments that are responses to their
sites and are sometimes metaphorical constructs of the world. The world here isn’t
represented in images of what is absent, but rather present in microcosm. Here, too, the
viewer enters into the work, literally, geographically. The work may speak to the whole
body, may have temperature, sensation underfoot, smell, sound and tactility, as well as
sights. Installation could be described as an attempt to speak to the mind in the
languages of the body: space, substance, systems, sensation8. (63)
Solnit describes installation as an entrance point for the viewer to see “metaphorical constructs
of the world”. I also find the concept useful as a way to articulate my series Inventory of
Architectural Forms. For instance, one of my sculptures resembles the organic and wavy surface
of the land. Over the top of square laminated wood pieces9, I pour different types of waxes
8
9
Rebecca Solnit, As Eve Said to the Serpent (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001), 47.
28cm x27cm x 5
33
(bees, paraffin and soy wax) to examine the different colors, textures, and tactile qualities of
wax. By slowly pressing and pushing the surface of the wax while it dries, a different surface is
evoked, a framed part of a land. By installing this work with other sculptural objects in an
arbitrary manner on the half-size ply-wood panel, I intend to present an entrance to
“metaphorical constructs” of the microcosm through edited architectural forms.
By investigating different architectural and organic inventories of forms and installing
these components in different ways while thinking of architectural models, I attempt a
containment of spatial sense. This evokes an intimate but immense world similar to how the
bonsai tree opened up that kind of world in my childhood memory. In my imaginings, these
forms could be enlarged into an architectural building beyond human scale, and transmuted
into my painting as an abstract form or a public sculpture in my garden design.
Fig. 13- Detail from Inventory of Architectural Forms
(2013)
34
To amplify these different sensory experiences, I re-capture the three dimensional
forms of this piece through photography. In the next stage of the process, I take a photo of
these sculptures at different angles. This process allows me to transform these objects into two
dimensional images, which seems to break down the sense of scale more dramatically. For
instance, the organic shapes could be traced geometrical forms of mountains and the square
structures could now be placed into the plan of a city. By tracing the outline of this shape
through drawing or using computer aided design programs10, I intend these images to resemble
architectural draftings, something that looks like part of a site plan or elevation map. In this
respect, the visual transition from three dimensional to two dimensional not only opens up a
fresh perspective toward Inventory of Architectural Forms, but is also strongly suggestive of
additional visual exploration for further drawings and paintings; for example, this approach
could inform an abstract painting as well as an architectural installation in a gallery space.
Fig. 14- Drawings from Inventory of architectural forms (2012). Illustrator file and Mixed media
10
Adobe Illustrator
35
To develop further potential works, I first play with, and expand on these ideas through
collage and drawing on one-foot-square panels. I cut the traced outline of my sculptures into
thin door-skin wood and use these lines, layers, and cut-outs as an attempt to utilize the thin
wood pieces like a puzzle for collage. These pieces are juxtaposed and multi-layered onto my
drawings with other colored papers and simple, figurative drafting lines which imply the scale
of the images. In the future paintings of this series, these collage images will be creatively
referred to and re-appropriated as a crucial step by which to explore the relationship between
form, space, color, abstraction and architectural models.
Fig. 15- Drawings from Inventory of Architectural Forms installation View (2012)
36
With regard to this relationship between two and three dimensional forms,
architectural historian Oswald Ansgar addresses the creative possibilities of architectural
models focused on “scale”. He not only expands my understanding of architectural models as
relevant to miniatures, but his writings also evoke new approaches to model-building as
sculptural embodiment through a reference to Jonathan Swift’s character Gulliver:
By scaling down architecture to proportions of a doll’s house, the architect is
magnified to the size of a giant relative to his own creation. At the same time, the
model provides the only moment when the architect can tower over his work, as it
were, and view it like a Gulliver in the Lilliputian world of his own design adventures.
(41)
Building on this description, my personal conversation with Canadian designer Tony O’Regan 11
added a psychological perception of scale as he remarked on “the uniquely human ability to
imagine being the same scale as a model or drawing” (O’Regan)12. These perceptions add
significant aspects that I interpolate with three-dimensional works as they expand the viewers’
receptivity to imagination. They serve as a productive research territory in order to crystallize
not only my Architectural Sculpture project, but other aspects of “the miniature” within my
practice.
11
Tony O’Regan, MEDes (Arch), is a graduate of Emily Carr University in painting and also studied architecture and
industrial design at UBC and U of Calgary, Urban Design at SFU, receiving a Master of Environmental Design
(Architectural Design Specialization). He was designer for numerous prominent civic and institutional buildings
(including the Richmond Cultural Centre) with major architectural firms. Through design practice and teaching he
has been very much involved in Urban Design, Interior Design (Faculty Member at Kwantlen) and Garden Design
(UBC). Tony shares his enjoyment for studio work in the fields of art and design through his teaching at UBC, ECUAD,
Shadbolt Centre and other venues.
12
th
Conversation with O’Regan October 12 , 2012.
37
To this point, I have worked to visualize concrete spatial images that I observe in
natural and architectural elements, and this part of my practice has been constantly developing
and expanding through investigations of the interdisciplinary practice between painting and
landscape architecture (park and garden). As discussed in the first chapter, in my work the
notion of a garden and park is a place not only for physical relaxation, but also a place for
restfulness of the mind through reflecting on oneself. Bachelard addresses how these spaces in
which we live begin to consume us, affect us, and help define who we are. In his chapter on the
“Miniature” he explains how our perception of the miniature shapes our thoughts and
memories beyond logic through our imagination. He describes:
In line with a philosophy that accepts the imagination as a basic faculty, one could say,
in the manner of Schopenhauer: "The world is my imagination." The cleverer I am at
miniaturizing the world, the better I possess it. But in doing this, it must be understood
that values become condensed and enriched in miniature. Platonic dialectics of large
and small do not suffice for us to become cognizant of the dynamic virtues of miniature
thinking. One must go beyond logic in order to experience what is large in what is small.
(150)
By considering the psychological aspects as O’Regan does, as well as Bachelard’s imperative to
possess something in order to understand it, I intend my working with scale to create new
perceptions of metaphysical space in the viewers beyond logical order by generating questions
concerning what is large within what is small to create the effect of disorientation. In
comparison to City Series, this process could provide another methodology; it examines how I
can explore physical and mental relationships between two and three dimensional forms,
38
architecture and art. This exploration would be based on my relation to the miniature, not as a
contained architectural form, but as an experience of intimate immensity through imagination.
Lastly, in concluding this chapter and my two years of exploration in a field of
architecture during the Master’s program, I refer to my inspiration from artists Dan Graham
and Martha Schwartz who also create an interplay between art and architecture. In regard to
this cross-disciplinary approach, Graham discusses the relational intersection in his interview13.
I don’t believe that form is architecture. I think architecture is about the program of
what happens inside in the interior and also how people walk through it and experience
it in time…Every artist wants to be an architect and every architect really wants to be an
artist. Although my work references to current architecture, which I’m a great fan of, I
consider myself an architecture tourist, not an architect. A great part of architects build
form, and I don’t think that’s architecture at all. It’s just a design motif they read books
about in the 1960’s. (Kopenhagen.dk).
For me, his interview seems to allow a sort of freedom in my works. As suggested by Graham’s
term “architecture tourist”, this tour might be continued not only through my paintings, but
also through further studies in landscape architecture. In this respect, I am especially motivated
by Martha Schwartz, (a prominent landscape architect and artist with a background in
printmaking and design,) and her notion of garden design and landscape architecture. Schwartz
brings an entirely new language to a traditionally horticulture-oriented profession in her
13
www.kopenhagen.dk in November 2008 that was in conjunction with his exhibition at Gallery Nicolai Wallne in Denmark.
39
dynamic designs that use colorful, unconventional objects, both real and artificial. In her book,
The Vanguard Landscapes and Gardens of Martha Schwartz, she declares her mission as a
landscape architect: “Like most artists and architects, I wish to leave a mark, something that, at
best, bespeaks whatever uniqueness I can bring to a place or that at least show that ‘I was
here.’ I see landscape as a medium and a vehicle for personal expression, much as a painter
would view a box of paint” (123). She also shares her personal connection with art and the
everyday: “I have always been interested in exploring new or unconventional materials. Like the
Pop artist, […] embrace the materials used and found in everyday life.”(125) I think her
innovative and interdisciplinary perspective both as a landscape architect and artist has been a
guide to my fundamental goals as an artist. I reflect this awareness and this intention more in
the next chapter.
Fig. 16- Hello, Martha (2010). Oil on Canvas 127×102.5cm
41
IV.
Nature
Things Which Can Be Seen Only If You Should Stop: Pebble Series
By focusing on motifs from nature, I attempt to develop a different perspective of space and
feeling, one which may be dreamy and illogical. In this chapter, I will explore this perspective by
investigating the concept of “insight contemplation” related to a Buddhist perspective. Through
clarifying the definition of “contemplation” anchored by memory and reflecting on the Pebble
Series, I will describe how my experience gazing at one particular object in nature, and
repeatedly painting and drawing this motif can be related to slowness and a looking-in-depth
process through art.
In my previous three chapters, I focused on describing my practice forming a connection
between art and architecture, and on this being the focus of my studies during the two years of
the Master’s program. This was an attempt to articulate a cross-disciplinary practice by
mirroring my relevant works, with their related themes. Investigating this transformational
process was a meaningful step not only for the inevitable progression in enabling me to write
this thesis, but also a fruitful development through personal reflection on my two year journey
from Seoul to Vancouver. In this last chapter, I intend to integrate this exploration into a critical
reflection of a final motif: Nature. By investigating “Nature” as related to my work as well as reexamining “Memory” as personal catalyst for creating my art practice, this last chapter will
involve self-reflection on my co-existence between the eastern and western cultural, historical,
and philosophical contexts.
42
What people see and what they desire to see may reveal the process of how they are
engaged in the world. In my work, this process is signified by focusing on a certain object,
imagining this object on a large scale in space, and visualizing this space in my paintings and
drawings as an intimate and imaginative locale with a sense of displacement. Anchored by my
own memories and perceptions, my paintings and sculptures are manifestations of the transient
nature of space and its elements from which I intend a viewer to extract his or her own
experience, unrestricted by physical barriers between the real and the surreal as a vehicle to
stimulate contemplation.
Philosopher and geographer Yi-Fu Tuan declares in his book Space and Place: “place can
be defined in variety of ways. Among them is this: place is whatever stable object catches our
attention. As we look at a panoramic scene our eyes pause at points of interest. Each pause is
time enough to create an image of place that looms large momentarily in our view” (161). In my
paintings, this idea of a momentary breath may be essential to determine what my work
attempts to do. By capturing elements from nature, and re-appropriating these images into my
works, I desire to create an imaginative and provocative place where our attention is recaptured through art.
In my practice, this idea is investigated in two different ways. Firstly, in the previous
three chapters, I explored this intention by negotiating the pre-established languages of
architecture to emphasize spatial awareness and disorient the viewer through my paintings and
sculptures. Secondly, I represent and reframe particular objects from nature in an effort to
43
explore deconstructed and fragmented ways of representation in spaces that embody my
imagination. For instance, the mixed media Pebble Series may be considered in this category as
here I explore the sense of displacement through an object from nature, taking the elements of
time and focusing through repetitive processes, to function as a means of contemplation.
Slow, focus and repeat… Pebble Series
In a modern Asian park, pebble paths are common elements beyond the purpose of
aesthetic decoration. People walk barefoot across these pebbles stuck to the ground with
cement as both a playful and medicinal exercise. Inspired by pebbles on an acupuncture path 14
in the public park near where I lived in Seoul, I attempted to transform this image, combining it
with my imagination to instigate a different set of perceptions, by changing the pebbles to a red
colour and an organic shape, and instilling the memory of physical or emotional pain such as the
pebbles might feel when people walk on them.
On the acupunctural path, when people walk on the pebbles, can the pebbles feel
something walking on them? Then how can I transform this perception from nature onto my
canvas? These questions became my initial perception for this work. By focusing on these small
objects, and the interplay between the paintings and sculptural installations in the series, I
intend to capture both my playful and painful perception of this place.
14
An acupuncture path (or gravel path) is one of the main forms of treatment in traditional Asian medicine; people
take off their shoes and socks and walk down the path. It is intended to activate different acupuncture spots on the
foot.
44
Fig. 17- Documentation of a pebble path in the park in Seoul; this view was taken from a bench in a park
where I used to sit to ponder and rest.
In my paintings, it is necessary for me to reimagine pebbles as translucent, shiny, and
feeling tangibly alive, rather than their inherently firm and hard characteristics. It is crucial to
emphasize that they are part of nature – alive, not dead. I set up a palette with various red and
yellow hues, and layer each pebble with pigment until I achieve a glossy red organic shape made
of different layers of colour. Through this process, I intend to suggest that a pebble is easily
popped, squished, and scattered -- something resembling a blood bubble to stimulate both a
painful and emotional experience similar to walking on a pebble path. Likewise, this perception
is simultaneously seen in the process I use to create my three dimensional work which is also
through a contemplative method. In this relational process between two and three dimensional
works, the goal is to create a repetitive and time consuming process in my everyday studio
practice. Through this physical, simple, and meditative process, I intend to explore and
emphasize an in-depth look at the pebble as an intimate motif from nature.
45
Fig. 18- Slow, Focus, and Repeat…Pebble Series: Painting # 1 (2012).Oil on Canvas. 118 X 122cm
Fig.19- Detail from Pebble Series: Painting # 1 (2012)
46
In the Pebble Series, I investigated the reframing of particular objects from nature in an
effort to explore deconstructed and fragmented ways of representation in space through
paintings and sculptures. In history, a garden of rocks and gravel are associated with spiritual
ideas stemming from Buddhism and Zen as elements in a garden or temple intended to provoke
contemplation. In Japanese gardens, specifically Ryoan-Ji in Kyoto, rocks and gravel are used to
offer a meditative space, providing a minimalist setting without, as Marc Treib notes, “admitting
any direct interpretation certainly not in garden design” (14). He continues, “More critically, the
garden serves equally as a vehicle for contemplation in its making and tending as well as in its
viewing. That is, the care and maintenance of the garden are also part of monastic life, and
according to doctrine, awakening normally arrives suddenly without restriction to time and
place: even raking gravel in a garden.” (15) Relevant to this perspective, therefore, my
observation of a pebble in the park, and re-interpretation of this pebble into a red shape in my
studio by painting and sculpting it over and over may be a signification of the contemplative
process through art-making beyond simply viewing it. For me, this process is not only awakening
my personal inner visualization of a pebble in the park, but also functioning as an aid in a kind of
meditation, concentration and reflection through an on-going daily studio practice. By installing
this work in the gallery space, I intend to impart this contemplative mood to the viewer.
47
Fig.20-. Sculptural installation: Pebble Series (2012)
In this vein, defining the notion of contemplation is crucial to create a base
understanding of my entire practice. Further, my established definition of “park” and
architectural spaces which I laid out in the introduction to this thesis – spaces as protected
environments containing natural and architectural elements including the psychological
dimension of the effects of contemplation and rest – is inherently important in relation to this
use of contemplation.
The literal definition of contemplation runs across several interpretations.15 There are
15
In the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary contemplation is defined in different ways:
1 a: concentration on spiritual things as a form of private devotion
b: a state of mystical awareness of God's being
2 : an act of considering with attention
48
generally two different perspectives; one is to simply view or consider with continued attention,
the other is a higher degree of concentration or meditation on spiritual things that accompanies
the perception of normal life. Regarding my interest in contemplation as a crucial methodology
of my practice, I am more focused on the second aspect of this process.
In the Contemporary Landscape of Contemplation, landscape architect and Professor Rebecca
Krinke expands on this idea of a higher degree of concentration by referring to Professor Robert
Thurman’s 16 perspective on this:
From a Buddhist analysis, Thurman defines contemplation differently: there is “calming
contemplation,” which focuses on the elimination of thought, benefiting body and mind,
and “insight contemplation,” which is similar to reflective states, and is considered to
contribute more to psychological, intellectual, and spiritual development than calming
contemplation. (1)
Here, Thurman introduces a deeper level of engagement with what an individual is viewing or
considering rather than being mindlessly entranced. Relevant to the notion of rest(休息) from
an Asian perspective, his definition of “insight contemplation” seems to also emphasize a more
active involvement for us. In the Buddhist perspective, this engagement may be a time for
seeking spiritual realization; it may be personal reflection, and new insightful awareness
through a psychological, intellectual, and spiritual development found in contemplation and rest.
3 : the act of regarding steadily
16
Professor of Indo-Tibetan Studies at Columbia University and a noted Tibetan Buddhist.
49
For me, this approach seems to allow for a crystallization of my practice by bringing back my
initial catalyst in nature (the bonsai tree), and reflecting on all four predominant motifs
(imagination, space, scale and nature) in my artwork triggered by this experience. The
investigation based on these motifs is my effort to evoke an “insight contemplation” in the
viewer which I myself intensively experienced on gazing at the microcosmic world of my
memory. By reflecting this sensory experience through art practice, my work may be a personal
journey to increase and realize this inspiration from nature, and a desire to transfer this
condensed sensory experience to the viewer. In the Contemporary Landscape of Contemplation,
Krinke illustrates this insight concerning contemplation associated with art as a reflective type of
contemplation between artist and viewer. She states:
Contemplation indicates a deliberate attention, often implying a concentration on ideas,
objects, or places that are somewhat outside our day-to-day thought. For example, art is
often linked to contemplation: the artist may be seen as being in a contemplative state
to create, or the viewer is seen as contemplating the work of art, or art is seen as able to
induce a contemplative response.(2)
If art is indeed able to “induce a contemplative response”, my art works and this thesis may
provide the basis of what I fundamentally intend to create as an artist. In this exploration, I hope
my work can open up a contemplative and imaginative perception of space and nature through
this relational process and its interplay between the paintings, drawings, and sculptural
installations. By evoking in the viewer their own series of contemplative moments, I hope the
gallery would be not only a space for resting(休息) somewhere outside the mundane, but could
also be a space for viewers to pass through their own innerscape.
50
Conclusion
The Resonant Harmony between Eastern and Western Painting and Perspective
By working through each chapter, I hope that my thesis acts as a guide to entering the kind of
space from which I have attempted to explore my art work based on the notion of 休息 (resting)
– a space for restfulness of the mind. As a conclusion, I would like to underpin my philosophical
perspectives through reflecting on my personal journey between Seoul and Vancouver, and try
to connect how these perspectives are engaged in my art and how they relate in particular to
my paintings.
As a foundational experience, I spent my childhood in the metropolitan city of Seoul, South
Korea, which is an artificial, loud, and built-up environment. In this large and chaotic city in Asia,
a small bonsai tree on my rooftop garden and a park were the places where I could emotionally
and spiritually rest through embodying my imagination somewhere outside the mundane. My
works’ challenge is to bring this contemplative consciousness into a gallery space to remove us
from the quotidian, a kind of restorative experience for people living in a modern city. For me, it
is often about ritualistic associations evoking our inner quietness or simply creating a
contemplative mood in an attempt to create an intimate and existential personal innerscape
which I desire to see and expose to the viewer.
For me, this perspective may also be rooted in traditional East Asian painting such as its holistic
approach emphasizing harmony as a way of meditative exercise. When I paint something, I’m
51
not only interested in the individual painting, but also in how it relates to other works in the
series or how elements in the painting co-exist without overwhelming each other. In traditional
East Asian painting, this aspect, as U-Chang Kim notes, is imbued with multiple points of view,
or a moving one, rather than the objectifying approach in Western painting governed by
Cartesian dualism (91). In Eastern art history, this perspective is engaged in a more
psychological process, the painter attempting to recreate a total experience of nature based on
their actual memory of landscape and nature. By using landscape painting as a mnemonic
device, artists are enabled to evoke their experiences of landscape through the mind; this is a
way of rendering not only visual impressions of landscape, but one that is also expanded in an
intention for a holistic immersion in the experience through art. This perspective may be the
most significant when I articulate my philosophical attitude as an artist. My paintings are
triggered by my memory of bonsai tree and the last painting in the series, entitled things which
can be seen only if you should stop, is influenced by this perspective.
Fig. 21- A Final Project in MAA Program.
Things which can be seen only if we should stop (2013). Oil on Canvas. 240x109 cm
52
In Buddhism, this holistic aspect is visually described by illustrating Indra’s Net17 from Hindu
mythology. The image of Indra’s Net shows us how a part actually includes the whole by their
mirroring each other, and how this reflective influence connects to a principle of
interdependence and interpenetration of phenomenon. Through this image, I seem to find a
way to articulate what my painting is, more particularly, what kind of space could be opened up
onto my canvas. Like Indra’s cosmic and integral net, for me a painting is an intimate and
immense opened space where my four pre-dominant motifs are all interconnected and resonate
between memory, imagination and space. Here, our inner barrier between the visible and
invisible, interior and exterior and the real and the surreal could be dissolved-- from which I
intend to create a kind of contemplative and motionless moment to be imparted to the viewer.
Through paintings, I explore this kind of scenery by a deep-looking into my four motifs, and
architecture is a bridge to access this space and to build up my own Indra’s net through different
forms of art18.
17
In the thirteenth verse we encounter the teaching of inter being and interpenetration as presented
in the Avatamsake Sutra. The Avatamsake Sutra is the source of the image of Indra's net which is
part of the god Indra's heaven. Indra's net is a vast, cosmic lattice that contains precious jewels
wherever the threads cross. There are millions of jewels strung together to make the net, and each
jewel has many facets. When people look at any facet of any one jewel, they can see all the other
jewels reflected in it. In the world of the Avatamsake, in Indra's net, the one is present in the all, and
the all is present in the one. This wonderful image was used in Buddhism to illustrate the principle of
interdependence and interpenetration. (Thich 81)
18
Consideration and expansion of these ideas leads me to future plans for an installation of an
outdoor gallery. This would suggest a new method of application, also involving the field of landscape
architecture. It would allow further reflection on my notion of park and 休息 (resting) into an actual
space beyond painting. Through this expansion from the micro to macro, viewers shall physically
walk through and experience a park or garden that is created from my paintings. The actualization of
imaginary spaces can lead my practice to other forms of exploration, while bringing together
different perspectives on time, from childhood memory to the present moment. Just as architects
and landscape architects such as Le Corbusier, Burle Marx, Zaha Hadid, and Maya Lin have utilized art,
in this vein, painting and sculpture will always remain as fundamental tools to walk through my own
intimate and immense innerscape.
53
Lastly, I want to reflect again on Bachelard’s claim here that, “Immensity is within ourselves. […]
As soon as we become motionless, we are elsewhere; we are dreaming in a world that is
immense. Indeed, Immensity is the movement of motionless man. It is one of the dynamic
characteristic of quiet daydreaming.” (184) I believe this concept is essential to both the
beginning and end point of this stage of my practice. Through my work, I desire to evoke this
motionless but imaginative moment. Just as the title of this thesis suggests, I intend my
paintings, sculptures and explorations in architecture to exemplify Bachelard’s sense of
immensity, dissolving the barrier between the visible and invisible, highlighting the things which
can be seen only if we should stop.
54
Works Cited
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space: The Classic Look at How We Experience Intimate
Places. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994.
Heide-Jørgensen Malene Jorck. “Interview: Pipilotti Rist and Carlos Martinez” Kopenhagen.dk
December2007.
Lin, Maya. Boundaries. Simon & Schuster, 2006.
Lin, Maya. Maya Lin: Systematic Landscapes. Yale University Press, 2006.
Kopenhagen.dk. “Interview: Dan Graham.” Kopenhagen.dk online website. November 2008.
Krinke, Rebecca. Contemporary Landscapes of Contemplation. Taylor & Francis US, 2005.
Okakura, Kakuzo. The Book of Tea. Arc Manor LLC, 2008.
Oswald, Ansgar. Architectural Models. Berlin: DOM Publishers, 2009.
Psychologytadya.com. “What Imagination Is” Psychology.com online website. July 2012.
Thich, Nhat Hang and Neumann Rachel. Understand Our Mind. Parallax Press, 2006.
Thompson, Ian H. The Sun King's Garden: Louis XIV, Andre Le Nôtre, and the Creation of the
Gardens of Versailles. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006.
55
Tuan, Yi-Fu. Space and Place: the perspective of experience. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1977.
U-Chang, Kim. Landscape and Mind: Essays on East Asian Landscape Painting.
Thinking Thee Publishing Co., Ltd. 2005.
Bibliography
Alborg, Michele. “Painting Idyllic Places: Distortions, Disruptions and Deviations”. Vancouver: A
thesis essay Emily Carr University 2009.
Casey, Edward S. Earth-Mapping: Artists Reshaping Landscape. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2005.
Casey, Edward S. Imaging: a Phenomenological Study. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
2000.
Casey, Edward S. Representing Place: Landscape Painting and Maps. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2002.
Cook Peter . Archigram. Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999.
Cook, Peter. Drawing: the motive force of architecture. Wiley, 2008.
Devall, Bill. Deep Ecology. Teddington: Gibbs Smith, 1985.
Goodman, Jonathan,; Robert C, Morgan; Jolaine, Frizzell and Airyung, Kim. JUNG-YEON MIN:
Hibernation. Zurich: Galerie Kashya Hildebrand 2009.
56
Henning , Daniel H. . Buddhism and Deep Ecology. Bloomington: Author House, 2002.
Low, Setha M; Taplin, Dana; and Scheld, Suzanne. Rethinking Urban Parks: Public Space &
Cultural Diversity. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005.
Malpas, Jeff. Place and Experience: a philosophical topography. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999.
Naess, Arne. The Ecology of Wisdom. Counter point; 1 edition, 2010.
Nisbett, Rechard. The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and
Why. Simon and Schuster, 2004
Richardson, Tim. Avant Gardeners: 50 Visionaries of the Contemporary Landscape.
Thames &
Hudson, Limited, 2008
Sadler, Simon . Archigram: Architecture without Architecture. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005.
Schwartz, Martha and Richardson, Tim. The Vanguard Landscapes and Gardens of Martha
Schwartz. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2004.
Silverman, Kaja. World Spectators. Palo Alto, California: Stanford University Press, 2000.
Stewart, Susan. On Longing: narratives of the miniature, the gigantic, the souvenir, the
collection. Durham: Duke University Press, 1984.
Tuan, Yi-Fu. Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perceptions, Attitudes, and Values. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1974.
Vranckx, Bridget. Urban Landscape Architecture. Minneapolis: Rockport Publishers, 2006.
Wallace, B. Alan. Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge.
Columbia University Press, 2009.