RAN HWANG: THE POLITICS OF BEAUTY
https://www.operagallery.com/media/353.pdf
Gili Karev, Art critic
With images evocating blossomed cherry trees, glossy beads and multi-coloured crystal birds, the work of artist Ran Hwang inspires an immediate feeling of deep beauty within the viewer. But as these get closer, the artwork decomposes in front of them and reveals several levels of understanding through an entanglement of sawing buttons mounted on headpins.
Thus from the elegant composition of the start arises a succession of complex interrogations on gender, religion and time. The multiple levels of reading of her works demonstrate the artist’s challenging attitude and the play of mirrors she uses to highlight her interrogations.
Born in Pusan, Ran Hwang trained as a painter at Chung Ang University in Seoul before moving to New York in 1997 to attend the School of Visual Arts. After her studies, she worked briefly in an embroidery design studio where she gained access to boxes of surplus buttons, a material she promptly began incorporating in her work. While her impetus to use the mass-produced materials was initially related to accessibility, Ran Hwang’s experience in garment production became a catalyst for her references to labour, femininity and craftsmanship. Her repetitive practice of hammering thousands of nails, beads and thread reflects on similar activities performed by millions of women working in garment factories throughout Asia. Unraveling the allure of the fashion industry, her use of common materials to create magnificent works mirrors the labour of the ordinary human against the glamour of the finished product.
Moreover, Ran Hwang’s work brings up relevant discourse about the role of craft in Eastern traditions versus Western approaches to art. The concept of craftsmanship and beauty have long been integral to Eastern traditions; intersecting in art, religious imagery and lifestyle. In contrast, Modern art in the west eschewed depictions of beauty in exchange for a grittier, more “realistic” expression of the human condition. From a gendered perspective, the west’s denigration of practices considered “women’s work”, such as beading and embroidery, has only recently begun to experience a resurgence as a result of feminine discourse and artistic practice such as Ran Hwang’s.
Ran Hwang’s mix of influences includes that of her Buddhist upbringing. Evidenced in her subject matter - the mesmerising harmony of cherry blossoms, birds in flight, dragons and Buddhist architecture - Buddhist teachings are also highlighted in the process of creation itself. Taking up to four months at a time on each meticulously constructed panel, Ran Hwang’s intensively laborious and repetitive practice becomes a form of meditation. Affixing thousands of beads, threads, buttons and pins onto board or plexiglass, the artist enters a state of quite contemplation on the nature of cyclicality, decay and rebirth. Concealed under layers of multifaceted labour, Ran Hwang’s work reveals the beauty to be found on the other side of the coin.
Her works overwhelm the viewer with their presence while demanding introspection and awe for her impeccable craftsmanship. She flows effortlessly between two realms of universal experience, elevating her work to the capacity for social, anthropological and political change. One plastic bead at a time.