Bichsaem Kwon
Bichsaem Kwon
The Gate 2, 2020
Oil on linen
30 x 25 cm
About this work
The gate has two opposing functions: enter/exit and open/close. It is a boundary between what is in front of it, and what is beyond. Here, it symbolises where the external and the understood become indistinguishable, fading into the immeasurable depths of human emotion.
About Bichsaem Kwon
Bichsaem Kwon is currently undertaking an MFA in Painting at Slade School of Fine Art, after gaining her MA in Painting from Kookmin University, Korea, in 2016. In 2019, Kwon received the prestigious British Institution Award for Student. Through her practice, the artist explores feelings of anxiety, emptiness and loneliness in her own relationships with others, through images of nature.
Kwon's paintings refer to her own personal experiences and feelings, including how she felt as a stranger in a foreign land, and the apprehension and aloneness she has felt during the formation of relationships with people. Rather than expressing these emotions directly, Kwon channels them into the canvas, using dark tones and natural landscapes as emotive temporal backgrounds on which to project. The environments present in her paintings simultaneously exist and are constructed; she reproduces scenes she has encountered or witnessed, but passes these through her own consciousness, and subjective memories. These landscapes consequently become detailed depictions of inner emotion, layered compositions of past and present, and instruments of symbolism. Kwon uses the canvas as a method to process her experiences, relieving her anxiety while contemplating the world around her.
Education
2021 MFA Fine Art, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, UK
2016 MA Fine Art: Painting, Kookmin University, Korea
2012 BA Fine Art: Painting, Gachon University, Korea
Awards & Prizes
2019 The British Institution Awards for Students, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
Residencies
2019 TFAC/COLART (Winsor & Newton) Residency, London, UK
Exhibitions
2019 “Interim Show”, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London, UK
2019 “Summer Exhibition”, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
2019 “TFAC/COLART” (Winsor & Newton), London, UK
2019 “Pulling Teeth”, ASC Gallery, London, UK
2016 “Gaze is open to everyone”, White Block ART Center, Paju, Korea
2015 “The 3rd Project Show”, Project Space Sarubia , Seoul, Korea
2015 “No longer artist”, aA Design Museum, Seoul, Korea
2015 “Flash Point”, Space Noon, Suwon, Korea
2014 “Global Drawing Interface Archive”, Cyart gallery, Seoul, Korea