New Art In The Workplace: Sei Ryun Chun: Eternal

Excited to announce that today there will be an opening reception for the latest Art in The Workplace program that I am proud to sponsor. See below for more information on the location and time of the reception and for more on this incredible artist, Sei Ryun Chun

Opening Reception: Wednesday, July 19, 5:30-7:30 pm

Location: Bank of Hope. 16 West 32nd Street, New York, NY 10001

Viewing Hours: M-F,9am – 5pm

This exhibition is part of AHL Foundation’s Art in the Workplace Program, which exhibits contemporary artwork in a work environment to create greater exposure for talented artists while fostering easier access and support for the arts within the business community. The Art in the Workplace program is presented in collaboration with Jason J. Kim Dental Aesthetics with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts.

Read more about artist Sei Ryun Chun:  http://www.seiryunchun.com/

The AHL Foundation in partnership with the Bank of Hope is pleased to present a six-month commission of artworks by Sei Ryun Chun to be on view at the Bank of Hope Manhattan Branch from July 19, 2017 – January 12, 2018.

Sei Ryun Chun’s solo exhibition, Eternal, will include 24 artworks that incorporate mixed media such as canvas, wood, leather that is stained with tea, traditional Korean ink, and painted on top to reveal remnant of the tea that has been absorbed to produce the static residue of time. Chun’s work is heavily influenced by "Gyubang" culture - a traditional lifestyle of Korean women with a focus on knitting, painting, and tea making. Her abstract expressionist work explores the ideas of “chun-ji-in (heaven-earth-human)” through her circular works that represent heaven and rectangular works that represent earth while threads symbolize the relationships and connections of human beings.

As an expert of the traditional Korean tea ceremony, Chun actively incorporates tea as part of her paintings—tealeaves and stains become a visual element while they provide a subtle fragrance to the paintings. With these elements made available to the viewers through work, she aims to provide an experience that viewers are invited to the artist’s tea ceremony and her meditation routines.

Born in Busan, Sei Ryun Chun majored in Fine Art at Konkuk University studying sculpture and painting. After graduation, she taught at Shinjung middle and high schools. In 1981, she moved to the U.S and studied etching at the New Milford Art Center in New Jersey and New York University in New York. She has had 14 international solo exhibitions and her work has been exhibited around the world including Korea, Italy, France, Germany, and the United States. She is also the Executive Director of Oms Art and has written extensively about art. 

This exhibition is part of AHL Foundation’s Art in the Workplace Program, which exhibits contemporary artwork in a work environment to create greater exposure for talented artists while fostering easier access and support for the arts within the business community. The Art in the Workplace program is presented in collaboration with Jason J. Kim Dental Aesthetics with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts.

For further inquiries about the exhibition or our programs, please contact 212-675-1619 orinfo@ahlfoundation.org.

Art In The Workplace: Featured Artist Jaye Rhee

The AHL Foundation in partnership with Jason J. Kim Oral Design New York Center is pleased to have four artworks by Jaye Rhee on view at Jason J. Kim Oral Design New York Center from May 25 – November 23.

Viewing Hours: M-F 9am-5pm by Appointment Only

Location: Jason J. Kim Oral Design New York Center 418 E 71st St #5, New York, NY 10021

Jaye Rhee revels in the space between the ironic and the poignant. Rhee’s works explore narrative, memory, illusion, poetics, body and movement, music and performance. The works on view include photographs from “The Perfect Moment” series in which a young dancer reenacts a narrative told by an older dancer as she reminisces about her past and “The Flesh and the Book” series where the original members of the Mercer Cunningham Dance Company perform spontaneous and elegantly choreographed movements along five black horizontal bands evocative of a stringed instrument or a stave from sheet music.

For inquiries about the Art in the Workplace program, please contact 212-675- 1619 or info@ahlfoundation.org.

"NonSelf/NonSite" Exhibit at the Coohaus Art Mora

Another important art event sponsored by jason J Kim oral Design NY! This time it's a our-woman exhibition curated by David Cohen entitled  "NonSelf/NonSite" featuring the works of Carla Gannis, JeeYoung Lee, Katherine Mangiardi, and Yooah Park.

So wonderful to be working yet again with the AHL Foundation on this important exhibit.

 On view from March 19 to April 1, 2015 at the Coohaus Art Mora (547 West 27th Street, Suite 307, New York, NY 10001)

Read below for more on the artists and curator David Cohen! Hope you can all find time to check it out!

About the Exhibit:

Working in modes between photo-based or digital technologies and more traditional, handmade expression, the artists explore issues of the projection or negation of visage within found or constructed environments.

All of the artists have, at times, worked with their own facial features but in each instance in disguised, veiled, camouflaged or displaced aspects.  None of the artists appear to use themselves as means of self-exploration, but rather as vehicles for understanding the potential or actuality of perceptual diminution of distinct identity.  Of related significance, each artist deliberately blurs boundaries between traditional and innovatory mediums and accepted or subverted conventions of portraiture.

Carla Gannis, for instance, has throughout her career actively challenged the divide between digital media and hand-made modes of expression.  For many years she has used her “self” in conceptually and perceptually disrupted avatars as a disembodied presence in the virtual realm, often exploiting the psychologically disruptive relationship between physical and virtual supports.

JeeYoung Lee works in a literal and taxonomical space between mediums, constructing sculptural environments within which she places herself as a camouflaged protagonist.  Her large scale C-prints in turn occupy an ambiguous position between performance and fixed image, sculptural event and cinematic or painterly composition.

Katherine Mangiardi has worked within various mediums to explore the extension, displacement and diffusion of the body in elaborately skilled activities such as lacework and figure skating. She has acknowledged overlooked or undervalued female originality in the historic lace industry through veiled, historically costumed photographic self-portraiture.

The career of Yooah Park has assiduously drawn paths between national tradition and contemporary alienation, incorporating studio painting and ritualistic performance art.  There is an in-built tension in her painterly reworkings of her own photographs of self-conscious social players in which life-like individuality is undone through layered, veil-like whiting-out of faces.

— David Cohen —

David Cohen is editor and publisher of artcritical as well as founder-moderator of The Review Panel which takes place at the National Academy Museum, New York, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts, Philadelphia, and is podcast here at artcritical. He was Gallery Director at the New York Studio School from 2001-10 and art critic and contributing editor at the New York Sun from 2003-08. His books include “Serban Savu” (Hatje Cantz verlag, 2011) and “Alex Katz Collages: A catalogue raisonné” (Colby College Museum of Art, 2005).

The Smile Artist's Exhibit To See: Wonju Seo: Dual Identities

Another incredible art exhibit presented by the AHL Foundation and sponsored by jason J Kim Oral Design NY!

You simply can't miss the solo exhibition by Wonju Seo entitled Dual Identities: a contemporary interpretation of Korean Bojagi from February 11 to June 8 at the BBCN Bank Manhattan Branch. 

Seo’s boldly colorful yet delicate contemporary textile pieces are inspired and rooted in the tradition of bojagi making (patchwork). Combining traditional hand sewing, embroidery and silk painting techniques with contemporary mixed media collage techniques, the abstract, beautifully hand stitched textile works reflect the intimate daily life experiences of the artist while evoking a mirror through which the artist redefines herself as a contemporary woman who grew up under a patriarchy in Korean cultural. The artwork acts as a window through which Seo views, defines, and experiences the outside world around her. The unique geometric abstractions bring together the artist’s dual identities of being a Korean woman and a woman who is living in a western society.

This exhibition is presented as part of AHL Foundation’s Art in the Workplace Program which exhibits contemporary artwork within the work and business environment. BBCN Bank and AHL Foundation’s initiative to provide cultural enrichment to the local business community has received much applause from employees, customers, the local community, and art enthusiasts. The program aims to create greater exposure for talented artists while fostering easier access and support for the arts among Korean-American business leaders.

Date: February 11 – June 9, 2015

Place: BBCN Bank, 16 West 32nd Street, New York NY 10001

From the Artist himself:

"The main theme on my work is my root where I came from including the history of Korean women’s lives. My work answers several life-long questions of where I come from, where I am, and where I am going. The colors I have selected in my work represent my own visual language that contains various personal circumstances, life experiences and knowledge. The significance of the rectangular shapes of my work mirrors the window from where I would gaze and imagine the outside world as a child. In addition, the “window” evokes the freedom to explore the unknown world around me that so many Korean women who grew up in a traditional Confucian culture like me has often wondered about. From inside my window, I redefine my confidence and boldly throw open the window to the outside world and understand its limitless opportunities, just like the developments in the lives of contemporary Korean women. Certainly, my work brings together dual identities of being a Korean and being a woman who is living in a modern society. "

You can learn more about Wonju Sep on his website HERE.