Meditative minimalist abstraction and otherworldly landscape art, side by side at Pace Gallery

By Park Han-sol

• Published Jul 17, 2023 11:49 AM KST
• Updated Jul 18, 2023 8:38 AM KST

Huong Dodinh's 'VIE | VIDE,' Matthew Day Jackson's 'Counter-Earth' concurrently on view in Seoul

By Park Han-sol

A scene of pure “luminosity and brilliance.” That is how Huong Dodinh recalls her very first encounter with snowfall in 1950s France.

It seemed that the whole earth was swallowed up by the infinite stretch of whiteness overnight ― an unrecognizable change in the eyes of a young Vietnamese girl, who had to flee from her home country at the age of eight with her family after the outbreak of the First Indochina War (1946-54).

Weeks later, however, when the snow began to melt, it suddenly revealed the subtleties of everything underneath it that was still pulsating with life and colors. The imagery has never left her to this day.

Thus began the 78-year-old's lifelong artistic quest to transfer the profoundly luminescent shades of white onto canvas ― reminiscent of a snowfield whose seemingly empty surface hides the vital force beneath.

On view at “VIE | VIDE” at Pace Gallery Seoul, Dodinh's first solo exhibition mounted in Asia, is the artist's K.A. series that speaks to the minimalist and contemplative nature of her practice. Those that visited this year's Gwangju Biennale may remember her paintings featured at the city's Mugak Temple.

In her work, the distinctly translucent and reflective background is brought to life by applying multiple thin layers of homemade paint onto canvas ― the process she likens to the Eastern lacquer technique. All of her muted pigments are sourced from mineral powders found in Provence, southern France and created by her own hand.

And against such backgrounds, lines, arcs and geometric shapes float fluidly, often in numbers that feel the most significant to her as they are interpreted as symbols signifying the evolution of life: three as “the proper beginning,” five as “the disciplined training” and seven as “fully mastering the skill and being granted creative liberation.”

With her emphasis on the meditative aspects of art production that comes from endless repetition of gestures, Dodinh's practice is somewhat reminiscent of Korean “dansaehkwa” (monochrome painting.)

“I work solely with my hands and a brush from start to end without the aid of any digital tools or assistant whatsoever, because every one of my gestures becomes an integral part of my piece,” the artist said at the gallery. “My goal is to produce art that can last for years as it continues to throb with life.”

Whereas Dodinh's process-oriented abstractions are born from her hands alone, New York-based Matthew Day Jackson, whose works are presented concurrently at Pace at his first solo Seoul show, “Counter-Earth,” noted how he wanted “to distance myself from the creation of the image by not relying on gesture or any concept of signature.”

In line with the goal of “keeping my fingerprints out” of the picture, the multidisciplinary artist adopted a photomechanical process involving a semi-autonomous laser for his latest body of landscape paintings ― where the strange and familiar intersect as in the world of science fiction.

Jackson's pieces on view take cues from the 19th-century landscape paintings and photography ― including masterpieces by Caspar David Friedrich, Albert Bierstadt and Eadweard Muybridge ― as well as Andrei Tarkovsky's boundary-pushing sci-fi films, but add his own otherworldly, celestial touch to the depicted sceneries.

“The paintings (that inspire me) do not purport to represent a particular place, but rather a feeling of the place. They're expressive of something deeper and darker ― as in Manifest Destiny (a cultural belief in the 19th-century U.S. that the expansion of American settlers across North America was destined), for example,” the artist said.

With an interest in such beguiling quality of landscape paintings and science fiction, the latter of which uses the futuristic framework as a vehicle for veiled social criticism, Jackson takes a subtle jab at today's imprudent tendency to treat the Earth's natural environment as if it were a fictitiously superabundant terrain with endless amounts of resources.

His uncanny, supernatural portrayal of recognizable topography is therefore, in his own words, an effort “to make magic out of something normal, basically.”

Both “VIE | VIDE” and “Counter-Earth” run through Aug. 19 at Pace Gallery Seoul.