Hong Seon Jang 

February-March 2010

About the Artist

Hong Seon Jang is an installation artist whose work derives from his fascination with the comparison of human activity and natural phenomena as it corresponds to the circulation of destruction and creation. He received his BFA from Dan Kook University, South Korea and earned his MFA in Imaging Art at Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY. He currently lives and works in New York City. He has attended studio programs at Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts in NYC, Painting Space 122 in NYC, and residencies at Sculpture Space in Utica, NY, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE, and Abron Arts Center at Henry Street Settlement in NYC. He has been widely exhibited in solo and group exhibitions including Artspace, New Haven, CT, Rush Arts Gallery, NYC, Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul, South Korea, The Islip Art Museum, East Islip, NY and PS122 Gallery, NYC.

Project Description

My current work derives from my fascination with the comparison of human activity and natural phenomena as it corresponds to the circulation of destruction and creation. It consists of installations often made out of found objects and common products. In giving these everyday materials new meanings and aesthetic possibilities, I strive to actively practice the concepts of the Eastern philosophies of the circulatory life system and the continuous flow of connections.

“Always support the bottom” is a continuation of my ongoing concepts of physical fragility in our daily life. I shaped the aluminum trays and foil into a glimmering orb-like vessel that appears to be aggressively formed as a mass but yet it can be easily damaged by any outside force because of the delicate materials. This work balances and plays with the dichotomy between destruction and creation within nature. Working with everyday materials and manufactured mass items allows me to give them new contexts. In doing so, I reconnect such items to the world in unexpected ways.

“Rainbow Forest” is about the transformation of one life form into another. The cut tree is represented as petrified or fossilized wood to symbolize death. In death it hosts new life forms. I re-create or manipulate the mundane objects into a likeness of natural forms to embody new contexts of physical existence, in a sense, mimicking the fundamental force of survival and growth.