A girl is staring at something, taking a break on the lawn. People go back and forth on the street probably waiting for someone else. Hike Ludewig's images contain instantaneous facets of flitting daily lives like familiar snapshots, which attracts viewers. Seemingly, the figures and space in her works assume a natural moment. Seen meticulously, objects that appear in images and the background are abstractly abbreviated or reduced as a reminder of vague moments captured.

Graduated from the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf, an art academy in Germany, the artist teaches there and produces paintings showing the borderland between objectivity and subjectivity and between concreteness and abstractness. Ludewig's style tends to be part of Dusseldorf art of concept paintings that cross back and forth between objective photographic images and abstract and concrete paintings. The objects in her paintings reveal everyday images well known to anyone and are concrete enough to feel forms roughly, whereas the uncertain figures and backgrounds have abstractness with outstanding emotional impression of colors implemented by the artist's technical brush touching. Unidentifiable figures and places are depicted more abstractly by means of spray paints. Materials painted with scattering colors carry transparency, leading the canvas plane to take a slight spaciousness, while the simplified images appear floating around on the canvas as independent forms. Starting from daily aspects in reality, Ludewig's paintings have the appearance of objects collapsed by subjective eyes as concrete paintings for objective eyes reflecting real images, not as realist paintings representing things as they are.

Art expresses subjective emotions intrinsic to an artist, and a painting is a mirror reflecting an experience and a moment, says the artist. Likewise, her paintings are a world of subjectivity embracing personal emotions and experiences. Although her images are original and unique resulting from artistic sensibility, they can arouse viewers to sympathy because the vague poise or acts of figures in her paintings are easily recognizable and familiar to anyone and are soaked with fragmentary thoughts of everyday life. Fragments of hazy memories and moments of still space and time are portrayed in her paintings, where contrasting factors such as subjectivity and objectivity, concreteness and abstractness and action and stillness do not collide but rather harmonize with each other.

Ludewig's paintings are her personal experiences and memories, but at the same time, they are what we are, which is why they seem to incite viewers to use imagination to unfold another story. Hopefully, this exhibition in the LEEAHN Gallery will become a chance to steal a peek at the aesthetics of our daily life along with joyful imagination.

LEEAHN GALLERY

 

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잔디밭에 한 소녀가 무언가를 응시하며 쉬고 있고, 거리에선 사람들이 누군가를 기다리는 듯 서성이고 있다. 하이케 루데빅의 작품 속 이미지들은 어디서 본 듯한 한 장의 스냅 사진처럼 흔히 스쳐 지나가는 일상의 단편적인 모습을 담고 있으며, 관객들이 쉽게 다가갈 수 있는 친근함이 있다. 작품 속 인물들의 행동과 공간 속에는 자연스러운 하나의 순간이 담겨있으나, 자세히 바라보면 이미지에 나타나는 대상이나 그 배경은 추상적으로 생략되거나 축소되어 포착된 순간을 상기시키듯 희미한 모습으로 남겨져 있다.

독일 뒤셀도르프 예술 아카데미 Kunstakademie Dusseldorf를 졸업하고 그곳에서 강의와 작업 활동을 병행하고 있는 작가는 객관성과 주관성, 구상과 추상의 경계에 놓여있는 회화를 보여주고 있다. 루데빅의 이러한 작품 경향은 객관적 이미지의 사진 작업들과 추상과 구상회화의 사이를 넘나들며 개념회화를 보여주고 있는 뒤셀도르프 예술의 한 맥락에 놓여 있는 듯 보인다. 회화 속 대상에서 보여지는 이미지는 어느 누구도 알아볼 수 있는 일상의 모습이며 또한 대략의 형태를 파악 할 수 있는 구상회화라고 할 수 있는 반면, 불분명한 인물의 형상과 배경은 작가의 붓 터치가 느껴지는 회화 테크닉에 감성적인 색감이 돋보이는 추상화의 모습을 띄고 있다. 정체성이 모호한 인물과 장소의 묘사는 최근 그녀가 사용하는 재료인 스프레이 페인트에 의해 더욱 추상적으로 표현되고 있는데, 흩날리듯 채색된 재료가 지닌 투명성에 의해 캔버스의 평면은 얕은 공간감을 느낄 수 있게 되고 간략화된 이미지들은 그 자체의 독립된 형태로 캔버스 속을 떠다니는 듯 보인다. 현실 속 일상에서 출발하지만 주관적인 시선에 의해 대상의 모습이 허물어지는 루데빅 회화 작품은 현실의 이미지를 반영한 객관적 시선의 구상회화이지만, 자연 그대로를 재현하는 사실주의 회화는 아니다.

예술은 예술가의 내재된 주관적 감정을 표현하는 것이며, 회화는 하나의 경험과 순간을 반영한 거울이라고 작가가 말했듯이, 그녀의 작품은 개인적인 감정과 경험이 담긴 주관적인 세계이다. 예술적 감수성에서 비롯된 독창적인 이미지임에도 불구하고 그녀의 작품이 관람객과 쉽게 공감대를 형성할 수 있는 것은, 작품 속의 인물포즈나 희미한 행동들이 누구나 쉽게 알아볼 수 있는 우리들의 모습이며, 일상의 단상이 스며들어있기 때문일 것이다. 흐릿한 기억 한 켠, 시공간의 정지된 한 순간이 담긴 그녀의 작품에서는 주관성과 객관성, 구상과 추상 그리고 움직임과 정지등의 대비되는 요소들이 충돌되지 않고 오히려 조화롭게 어우러져 표현되고 있다.

작가 개인적인 경험과 기억이지만 동시에 우리의 모습이기도 한 루데빅 작품은 보는 이로 하여금 또 다른 이야기를 풀어나갈 수 있는 상상력을 자극하는 듯 하다. 이번 리안갤러리 전시를 통해 이런 상상의 즐거움과 함께 더불어 우리 일상의 미학을 엿 볼 수도 있는 기회가 되었으면 한다.

리안갤러리

 

 

A girl is staring at something, taking a break on the lawn. People go back and forth on the street probably waiting for someone else. Hike Ludewig's images contain instantaneous facets of flitting daily lives like familiar snapshots, which attracts viewers. Seemingly, the figures and space in her works assume a natural moment. Seen meticulously, objects that appear in images and the background are abstractly abbreviated or reduced as a reminder of vague moments captured.

Graduated from the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf, an art academy in Germany, the artist teaches there and produces paintings showing the borderland between objectivity and subjectivity and between concreteness and abstractness. Ludewig's style tends to be part of Dusseldorf art of concept paintings that cross back and forth between objective photographic images and abstract and concrete paintings. The objects in her paintings reveal everyday images well known to anyone and are concrete enough to feel forms roughly, whereas the uncertain figures and backgrounds have abstractness with outstanding emotional impression of colors implemented by the artist's technical brush touching. Unidentifiable figures and places are depicted more abstractly by means of spray paints. Materials painted with scattering colors carry transparency, leading the canvas plane to take a slight spaciousness, while the simplified images appear floating around on the canvas as independent forms. Starting from daily aspects in reality, Ludewig's paintings have the appearance of objects collapsed by subjective eyes as concrete paintings for objective eyes reflecting real images, not as realist paintings representing things as they are.

Art expresses subjective emotions intrinsic to an artist, and a painting is a mirror reflecting an experience and a moment, says the artist. Likewise, her paintings are a world of subjectivity embracing personal emotions and experiences. Although her images are original and unique resulting from artistic sensibility, they can arouse viewers to sympathy because the vague poise or acts of figures in her paintings are easily recognizable and familiar to anyone and are soaked with fragmentary thoughts of everyday life. Fragments of hazy memories and moments of still space and time are portrayed in her paintings, where contrasting factors such as subjectivity and objectivity, concreteness and abstractness and action and stillness do not collide but rather harmonize with each other.

Ludewig's paintings are her personal experiences and memories, but at the same time, they are what we are, which is why they seem to incite viewers to use imagination to unfold another story. Hopefully, this exhibition in the LEEAHN Gallery will become a chance to steal a peek at the aesthetics of our daily life along with joyful imagination.

LEEAHN GALLERY