Koo Kyung Sook-University Library Gallery

Until May 17th the aptly named "Markings" exhibition will be shown in the Sacramento State University Library.

Koo Kyung Sook's work is asserting, vivid, and alive. Looking into one of the pieces is like peering down a microscope to see the swirling organism below. 

This effect is no accident, although the marks themselves are completely random. As Sook claimed in her artist statement:

I do not have any particular images in mind when I start my work. Instead, I make hundreds of improvised marks...I then follow my intuition in the process of constructing, discovering, and reconstructing the selected marks to join them together to create figurative images.

Her creative process, which in this body of works begins back in 2004, is extensive and laborious. It began through a fascination with collaboration, in art, the body, and life. A focus on what makes up a human body, a person. In the shows earlier pieces, we see figures abstracted into marks: small, random parts making a whole. 

Using objects such as plastic bags and bubble wrap, Sook creates these marks on small pieces of photo paper using only photo developer. She scans these photos and pieces them together into the fluid figurative forms, which she then transfers onto high-quality mulberry paper.

Figure 5, 2009, Digital Print on Mulberry Paper

Life blooms inside these portraits in the form of organic lines and shapes. In fact, the head of the figure above the others below was created from real hair, via the use of Sook's own wig needed during an illness she suffered in 2004.

This illness inspired in Sook a fascination with the inner workings of the body. In Sook's piece Invisible Torso 3-Red (Shown Below), she used bubble wrap to covey the idea of cells forming a human body--her body. Sook laid atop the bubble wrap to create the impressions that made up the finished product. The blown-up scale emphasizes the abstraction of the body and the running red lines suggest organic fluids flowing through our bodies. 

Invisible Torso 3-Red, 2005, Digital Print on Mulberry Paper, 122" X 97"

Originally primarily working with sculpture, Sook found that textuality was a missing element in her work. The solution was given to her by a peer, who showed her a technique utilizing woodcut reliefs, although not in a typical way. The interesting groves and layers found in some of Sook's pieces are created through a slow process of carving and layering. 

By taking a carefully carved woodcut block and layering it many times with paper (Korean mulberry being the primary choice) the pressed paper itself becomes the relief, and is then sealed with glue. The woodcuts above were actually carved through the use of a CnC machine, which automates the process. Sook found however that these machines couldn't make organic lines and forms, and often required replacements for the drill bit. Sook would go in herself and edit the paper reliefs with a blade to get the desired effect, creating white outlines in the black sections.

These reliefs solved another problem for Sook: the clearness of the figures vs. the background due to the clear divisions of black and white. Rather than the photo developer clearly showing the figure against a white background, these reliefs created an opportunity to create what Sook describes as "frantic energy", in which the background and foreground are no longer clear. Ever concerned with showing life, these pieces truly abstract and create that close-up effect of a living organism.  

Although most comfortable with monochromatic color schemes, Sook branches out in both technique and style in the above piece which she created with her husband Ian Harvey. Through the use of business cards, enamel, and shellac among other materials, Sook and Harvey each brought their own element to the piece (Sook describes her actions as Big and Harvey's as Little or Precise actions), yet the result is a unanimous piece that looks like it was made by one artist. Another study on collaboration, and many parts making a whole. 

Markings 18-1, 2018, relief woodcut and collage, 76.5 x 232.5"

Sook's most recent works have been collages such as the one above. They are made up of the broken pieces of previous paper reliefs which did not escape their molds in one piece. These huge colorful works are an amazing accumulation of all the techniques  Sook has attempted over the years. This exhibition, much like this piece, was its own being, made up of the many parts of Sook's past and collaborations with Sacramento State staff. The various pieces made a whole, just as in Sook's work.

Thank you very much to Koo Kyung Sook for speaking to the Art 112 class, you were a gracious and entertaining speaker!