Yi Hwan-Kwon B. 1974

李桓權 Ju-Ha

Footnotes

Provenance
Edwin's Gallery, Jakarta
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued by Edwin's Gallery signed by Edwin Rahardjo dated 12 January 2016.

Ju-Ha
玻璃纖維強化塑膠
2013年作

底部簽名：Yi Hwan Kwon 이환권 4/5

來源
雅加達Edwin畫廊
現藏家直接購自上述畫廊

此作品附Edwin畫廊出具Edwin Rahardjo於2016年1月12日簽名之證書

Born in 1974, Hwon-Kwan Yi is among a younger generation of Korean artists interesting in exploring the limits of perception, the boundaries between the virtual and the real. He employs trompe l'oeil techniques with technologically advanced materials to create playful and disarming works that slyly disrupt the viewer's cognitive and visual assumptions.

Ju-Ha, featured here, is a signature example of his works. Featuring a realistically rendered but proportionally oversize child in diapers, the child is investigating a toy ball, perched precariously atop a simple wooden stool. The forms are rendered in loving detail. The stool appears soft and smooth; the ball is striped in nostalgic and bright reds, whites and blues; the child's gave is fixed, enraptured, and intent; a small hand hesitates on the edge of the stool.

Yi uses fiber-reinforced plastic (FRP) that allows him to achieve such exquisite details, details that are then hand-painted in acrylic and brought to life. The FRP also allows the artist to obscure and distort the form, such that it appears fully three-dimensional, but bleeds, blurs, and all but disappears as the viewer circles the work and begins to absorb Yi's subtle undermining of our cognitive expectations.

Though the work is solid and material, it takes on the appearance of a hologram as the mind grapples with the distortions of reality. The effect is reminiscent of sitting too close to the television or movie screen and witnessing the distortion of figures and forms across a flat surface. Yi inverts this experience, creating three dimensional sculptures and making the mind stumble into seeing them as flat. Yi delves into the illusory nature of our own contemporary world, with our day-to-day experience of the "real" increasingly mediated by virtual representations and flat screens. Yi cleverly inverts this habituation with Ju-Ha. Featuring a universal, almost sentimental scene: what, after all, is lauded as more "real" than the innocence of a small child? Yi renders this monument to childhood as paper-thin and distressingly illusory, lightly inviting us to question the very basis on which we perceive and accept reality.

李桓權生於1974年，為韓國年輕一代藝術家中喜歡探究感知極限及虛實界線的藝術家。他運用視覺陷阱的技巧和高技術媒介來干擾觀者的認知及視覺判斷，呈現出高趣味性、引人注目的作品。

《Ju-Ha》是李桓權最具代表性的作品之一，展現一位面目傳神、身材比例過大的尿布孩童。一張簡單的木凳子，上面放置了一個搖搖欲墜的皮球，而小孩正仔細地審視着它。木凳柔和光滑，皮球則用上鮮艷、帶有懷舊氣息的紅、白、藍色彩。小孩處於定格狀態，神情歡欣，且十分專注。他躊躇地將小手按著凳子邊上。

李氏運用玻璃纖維強化塑膠（簡稱FRP）作為繪畫的基底，讓他可以在作品上繪製出精緻的細節。這些細節再透過以丙烯酸顏料親手上色，達至栩栩如生之效果。此外，FRP材質讓看似立體的作品呈現出扭曲、模糊的體現。隨觀者環繞檢視作品時，作品視覺點在逐步觀看時漸漸變形消失，潛移默化地達到藝術家欲顛覆觀者預設認知的目地。

雖然作品是由堅固材料來構成一個實體，但呈現的變形效果卻帶有全息投影般的虛擬模式，牽動了觀者思考實體和虛擬之間的界限。此般體驗宛如在近距離觀看電視或電影一樣，眼前浮現的是屏幕投射出的扭曲影像。李氏將此視覺體驗透過立體雕塑倒置出來，觀者卻巧妙地看到一個平面效果。在現今生活中，我們體驗「真實」與虛擬載體，藉由屏幕與否來體驗的例子不勝枚舉，李桓權巧妙地在《Ju-Ha》上顛覆了慣性感官，打造了一個勾人心弦的場景。此作也衍生出一個普世思索的問題，究竟有什麼比一位稚子更「真」？李氏將此領悟化成一位孩童，把它打造成單薄、叫人迷思的虛幻體，邀請觀者一同思考最根本的問題，到底哪個才是我們感知和接受的現實。