7 Oct 2010 — 7 Nov 2010

 Ha Sang Rim's page
Ha Sang Rim
New paintings

Gallery2 is pleased to present new works of Ha Sang-rim, who has expressed the image of flower in a unique color and style, from October 7 to November 7. In this solo show, New Paintings, about 20 works in various sizes are exhibited, somehow different from her previous works as the title suggests.
Ha is famous for her flower paintings. Although each of those flowers exists in its own particular color and form, we usually appreciate them as flower in general. Those transient ones exploding in full blossom and fading into disappearance in a moment are indeed a powerful metaphor. Without referring to the subject matter, however, her paintings invite multiple interpretations in terms of composition and tone.
In her past works, Ha painted some flowers through dark shading and added sharp lines around them on the background of uniform color plane. Almost always in solid color, without expressive stroke or granular texture, those paintings seemed to have no room for subjective appreciation. And the color was highly unique, something evasive to avoid categorization, between pale blue and gray, for example.
Her new works presented in this show do not express the idea of flower any more but describe weeds flourishing everywhere without a certain name. Ha says that she just wanted to grasp their form in itself, but the representation looks not so realistic. The drawing is not three-dimensional, the color is not grass green, and the subject’s identity and contexts are not significant. On the contrary, her concerns on color and line are much more prominent in these new paintings.
What draw the audience’s attention are not the subject matter but such a sensuous line and color. An exciting tension appears between the solid background and the swift lines without stroks, whose dazzling movements floating around on the canvas enforce the retinal sensation much more. The repetitive arrangement of lines in white and gray tone makes the entire plane of painting almost glow and explode out.
While they look minimal in terms of limited color palette and abstract composition, Ha’s paintings are rather closer to the tradition of sublime paintings such as Barnett Newman or Mark Rothko. Despite their lack of expressive gesture of the artist, the paintings make the audience feel the intense pictorial energy and experience the chilling wonder of transcendence. 
Untitled-GO1001
Acrylic on cavas
182 x 227 cm
2010