Students 1 Oil on canvas, 180x240cm, 2018
Students 2 Oil on canvas, 120x160cm, 2018
Photography: Tabial
Students 1 Oil on canvas, 180x240cm, 2018
Students 2 Oil on canvas, 120x160cm, 2018
(De-)vision Division 4. Oil on canvas, 180x240cm, 2021
Photography: Tabial
Landscape Oil on canvas, 116,5x91cm, 2005
Students 1 Oil on canvas, 180x240cm, 2018
Students 2 Oil on canvas, 120x160cm, 2018
Photography: Tabial

Students 2 Oil on canvas, 120x160cm, 2018
(De-)vision Division 4. Oil on canvas, 180x240cm, 2021
Photography: Tabial
(De-)vision Division 4. Oil on canvas, 180x240cm, 2021
Photography: Tabial
Landscape Oil on canvas, 116,5x91cm, 2005
Photography: Tabial
Series Open techniques Oil on canvas, each 60x80cm, 2018
Landscape Oil on canvas, 116,5x91cm, 2005
Photography: Tabial
Series Open techniques Oil on canvas, each 60x80cm, 2018
Photography: Tabial
Series Open techniques Oil on canvas each 60x80cm 2018
Photography: Tabial
Landscape in the landscape Oil on canvas 180x180cm 2013
Photography: Tabial
Landscape in the landscape Oil on canvas 180x180cm 2013
Photography: Tabial
Hometown of stranger 2. Oil on canvas 210x280cm 2012
Photography: Tabial
A place where wishes blow Oil on canvas 180x240cm 2013
Photography: Tabial
Exhibition view: <Seesaw riding Landscapes> 2022, Hapjungjigu, Seoul
Photography: Tabial
Exhibition view: <Seesaw riding Landscapes> 2022, Hapjungjigu, Seoul
Photography: Tabial
Exhibition view: <Seesaw riding Landscapes> 2022, Hapjungjigu, Seoul
Photography: Tabial
Exhibition view: <Seesaw riding Landscapes> 2022, Hapjungjigu, Seoul
Photography: Tabial

Eunah Hong Solo Exhibition
Seesaw riding Landscapes
Period: From February 18 to March 19, 2022
Venue: Hapjungjigu (40 World Cup-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul)

Exhibition Preface
JEON geuryun (Curator of Hapjungjigu)
Translation: Dahye Yim 

It feels as if the wind is blowing. It is because of the green trees and the clearness surrounding the entire first floor. Everything in <(De-)vision Division 4.> (2021) is transparent, so people, trees, and shadows overlap each other. However, just because it is clear does not mean the wind can blow. The wind needs a way to get in and out. This painting depicts South Koreans climbing a mountain and North Koreans playing volleyball. By overlapping the two landscapes into one, a line interfering with each other’s scenery is created, but the artist does not erase or mash it. Instead, she decided to make it more vivid by contrasting it. From this point on, the landscape begins to fragment and become out of joint. The artist widens this small gap created by the two landscapes and creates a winding path. This transparency completely disappears in <Blue House>(2015). The artist does not allow any blank space in this work, which combines the ‘general strike’ organised by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) in 2014 and the Blue House. The Blue House occupies the whole space of the painting, and one cannot see a gap between the black crowd. The crowd pressure the Blue House by running precisely towards one point, and the two landscapes completely become a single landscape. 

The air in the two paintings is remarkably different. It changes according to the distance between the two landscapes, and this distance is slightly different for each work, making rhythms in the exhibition hall. For example, in <Mountain, Mountain, Blue Mountain> (2018), which depicts mountains in North and South Korea, traces of overlapping landscapes have been erased like in <Blue House>, but a breeze still blows between the landscapes. On the other hand, in <Where Are You Going?> (2012), which mixes the landscapes of Granada, Spain and Seoul, something that looks like shadows flickers on the outside wall of the building and looks dizzy due to the different viewpoints, but the two streets entirely become one landscape. Such diversity of gaps is possible because the artist has a different sense of distance for each painting. 

Eunah Hong migrated to Germany and has been living there. She said that she started to see many issues in Korea objectively after she moved to a faraway country. Issues of South and North Korea were one of them. The hatred of some conservatives toward North Korea, viewed from a far distance, was bizarrely extreme. This is why the North Korean landscape she chose is ordinary, and this is why a cool breeze blows between South and North Korea. Even during the 2014 general strike by KCTU, the artist was in Germany. At the time, the government ignored the court’s ruling that “the march could not be stopped” and blocked the demonstration with a bulkhead. The police arrested the organisers and sprayed tear gas on the protesters. Although it was a legitimate demonstration against public sector privatisation and labour oppression, the reaction was violent. In <Blue House>, the distance between the two landscapes completely disappears, and unlike other works, it is produced in a dramatic sense because there is a desire that their message can reach the Blue House. 

In other words, to fully convey this sense of distance that the artist feels, it is necessary to find a sense of painting that suits her perception. Eunah Hong repeatedly paints to find a suitable formative language. She experiments with the order of painting, the concentration of paints, and the degree of contrast, and paints unpainted areas or erases already painted areas. As in <Students 1> and <Students 2> hung behind it, she differs the size of the paintings or draws the same landscape numerous times with the pen drawing method as in <Drawing, Blue House>(2015), <Drawing, February 2014, In Front of Seoul City Hall>(2014). Contemplations on paintings, landscapes, and appropriate language that suit each expression lead to <Open Techniques> (2018-2019). 

The artist establishes specific rules in this series and draws 22 landscapes following these rules. Sceneries such as accident sites, small-sized demonstrations, traditional games, streets or roads, and homes are all scrambled up, some sceneries are familiar, and others are not. The link between the paintings is indistinct, but the artist decides to be unfriendly, not explaining. (Especially when you think of the banner with red letters hanging in <(De-)vision Division 4.> and the signboard in Korean in <Where Are You Going?>) We do not know where this place is, who these people are and what they are doing, but some of the audience might focus on one spot based on their own experiences. However, the artist even interrupts such appreciation by drawing all the paintings in the same size and hanging them side by side. Accordingly, the situation, ideology, and value contained in the paintings are all appropriated in the same size, volume, and weight. 

Here, the drawings that Eunah Hong has drawn for a long time are placed regardless of order. The images she chose change over time, but they are all the same in that they struck the artist. Eunah Hong looks at the struck spot. Taking a closer look, she looks for a suitable place to translate it into a painting fully. So, her paintings show not only her location but also the process of looking around it. She still diligently moves her hands, repeating this process over and over again. Thereby, I hope you can look for a suitable place by moving from painting to painting – like the artist estimated the gap between each landscape, as she examined her place with the sense of her fingertips, as if riding a seesaw.