Different views of an exhibition

The echo of the heart, the echo of the sentient beings

At the beginning of the universe, the gods of the beginning were embodied by mountains and rivers, lakes and seas, sun and moon, and stars.
Humans were born in chaos, shedding the skins of ignorance and children, and began to awaken their consciousness with clear eyes. "Who am I, where am I from, and where do I go?" This may be mankind's first whisper and a fundamental question that penetrates life.
Humans constantly wrestle with themselves and collide with others on their journey to the essence.
The conflict between inner desires and fears, real choices and ideals, draws the individual's feeble light into the group's whirlpool and constantly shakes it in the huge flow of society. Humans seek to change the world, understand others, and try to complete themselves, but there are also moments when they get lost in conflict and loss. However, there are times when all phenomena suddenly become calm and the commotion of the world moves away. After disillusionment, a deeper understanding arises.
I am from the universe, and I am one who will eventually seep into the world. I am everything itself, and I am the life and death of the high tide, the low tide, and the vegetation. However, the sky is far away, and everything is fleeting, and in the end, everything returns to normal. The most fundamental question is essentially unanswered and does not necessarily need an answer. This exhibition is a gaze that gazes at me and a journey to a dialogue with the universe. I hope you will find a trace of the intersection of self and all things in the canvas, and I hope you can feel the calm and liberation at the end of your anguish between colors and lines.


After the Echo

What is 'sound'? It is a question asked by an individual between the universe and reality, the echo that first resonates when consciousness wakes up, and the fundamental question of "Who am I" that people whisper in chaos. Then, what is an 'echo'? It is a reply in which these sounds are reflected and refracted in society, history, and the passage of time, and it is a close but distant response as if someone's cry had returned to the wall. An echo originated from the world but at the same time rises from the inside, and is a deep echo formed after the ego collides with the outside.
'After Echo' is silence after the expression is over, and it means silence after the shock subsides, and the void of existence. Young artists today live in this era of 'after Echo'. Information is overflowing, meaning is shaken, and the object constantly speaks out, but the sound disappears in an increasingly loud and ambiguous reaction. What they face is not a world of silence, but a reality in which there is no real listening in too much noise.
In Zygmunt Bauman's 'Liquid Modernity', the stable social structure and clear identity are gradually dismantled. Individuals have to adjust and reconstruct themselves in the midst of constantly changing trends, but at the same time, they are in a state that is difficult to take root. In this context, 'sound' is an effort to confirm existence, and 'echo' reveals an increasingly complex relationship between the self and society, between me and the other.
This exhibition "After Echo" is a collective response to this mental state. Participating young Chinese artists use painting as a starting point for personal experience and try to explore deep self between freedom and restraint, and between longing and loss. The canvas became a resonance chamber where their minds resonated, and a space to pour out desire, anxiety, and solitude. Each work seems to ask the following question. When the world no longer responds, and when the echo disappears, how can we confirm the existence of 'I'? Is freedom still possible? Can the true self remain intact in change?
What they describe is not just an inner war, but a fundamental question about the world. In an era where order is broken and meaning is scattered, these works are an attempt to connect with the world again where the echo has disappeared, like a whisper on the ruins. The anguish and division, sew and regeneration that appear between the colors and the lines show the flow of the mind that quietly starts after silence. 'After the echo' does not mean the end. Rather, it signals the beginning of a new awakening. After the disturbance subsides, humans can finally get closer to their natural voice. It is an aspiration for freedom, a longing for meaning, and an attempt to reaffirm existence. I hope that visitors will also find their inner voice among these works. Even if it is weak, it is true and strong.

"Inside War: Finding Freedom in Chaos"

At the beginning of the universe, the gods became mountains and rivers, lakes and seas, sun and moon, and stars and were born in chaos. Humans walked out of this chaos, removed their ignorance and weakness, and woke up with a clear consciousness.
"Who am I? Where am I from, and where am I going?"
This question is a human whisper toward the inside, not the outside, and a fundamental question of existence that is asked back throughout life. Art, as a mirror of the human soul, has constantly answered this old question.
Today, the social structure is getting looser and the semantic system is quietly collapsing. Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman named it 'Liquid Modernity' and compared modern society to a liquid that is constantly flowing and changing. The stable and certain trajectory of life has been dismantled, and individuals have to continue to reconstruct themselves in the midst of changes in wealth, resulting in the wandering of identity and the absence of mental roots.
The KCC exchange exhibition "Inner War: Finding Freedom in Confusion" sheds light on the inner struggles that young artists are experiencing in this era of "floating modernity." Using themselves as a starting point, they seek order in chaos and resonance in solitude.