JEAN RAH
나 진 숙
Self-purification Through a Reflection of Memories
By Yoon Du-hyun, Independent Curator
Like the words that all leave traces, we form our memories, as if breathing air every minute. These memories amassing momentum for our future lives extend the sphere of our inner self. These may be a vivid pain of love, heart fluttering, unique experiences, or emotional traces. As if an act of praying for the realization of wishes is common, there memories remain enlarged, disclosing the structure of the collective unconscious. Jean Rah is an artist who works with such memories.
Rah’s work is not for exposing her memories as they are, but for reflecting on them. The memories she reflects on here are not only derived from her life, but our own selves, who breathe and live in the same space. What she intends to pursue through this reflection of memories is not simply to recall and miss the past. This act is not past-oriented but future-oriented in that we encourage and enhance the value and meaning of our lives from the perspective of present and future. In this sense, Rah’s work is close to pursuing self-purification and truth.
Like the fundamental structure of a memory composed of small fragments, Rah’s work consists of many small plates on which symbolic images are engraved. They are all carved in relief on both rubber and wooden plates, or transferred to mulberry paper in harmony with a video. Rah’s work, a reflection of memories, generates both two-dimensional and three-dimensional spaces. Active as one of the artists-in-residence program of the Young Eun Museum of Contemporary Art, she enlarges each part of her memories using canvas and resin.
All forms she creates such as cloud, shellfish, egg, water drop, star, and boat, are not the products of her concrete memories but her ideas, or nature that represents the sublime. For this reason, her metaphorical memories have no meticulous narrative structure that reflects reality. As her forms have their own symbolism, Rah’s work is full of abundant narratives, rather than being in a prosaic state. Like the patterns engraved on the wooden frames of an old house, the structure of communal unconsciousness could be seen in her work.
How does contemporary art deal with memory? Its sphere is so broad and extensive that it is hard to make references to specific examples one by one. This is why an act of doing pictures itself is to practice them by remembering what we saw. This is also closely associated with the matter of representation, which has long been one of the main issues of art. Representation, or memory, however, is not an ultimate goal of contemporary art any more. Through memories, individual or collective, we come to face the demand of reflection, as did the precursors of contemporary art who had their doubts about and reflected on human existence.
Jean Rah’s work meets a requirement by inside and outside contemporary art in this context. But it does not mean bringing her art to completion. To remember and reflect herself in the forum of dialogue and communication is further required. Considering some tendency today that has no reflection of memories and light-heartedness of representation draw more attention, her art pursuing depth and profundity is like a ray of hope and expectation in contemporary art.
2007