Hyelim Cha

차혜림, 대화 Conversation, 2024, oil on canvas, 112×145.5cm

PIBI Gallery proudly presents the solo exhibition of Hyelim Cha, Eternal Return_Black, from June 5th to July 20th, 2024. Based on her own novels, Cha explores her creative horizons over diverse mediums of painting, sculpture, installation, and video and continues to examine the relationships between community, society, and individuals in connection to the media of the contemporary. Eternal Return_Black, the artist’s first show with the gallery, presents in one space a series of different stories surrounding the disappearance of the character “Black” in her written work, thereby restructuring and suggesting unseen images vanished into the off-screen realm.

차혜림, 막간 Between the Acts, 2024, oil on linen, 64.9×64.9cm

Cha’s works – paintings of various sizes depicting figures looking away and engrossed in something, a neon sign that reads “Nous sommes embarqués (We have embarked),” and a structure shaped like a diving board made of soft artificial fur – stir curiosity in viewers. They exude an odd sense of expectation that something is about to happen in the next scene, much like the dramatic effects in film, instilling in viewers an insecure feeling somewhere between anticipation and fear as they imagine what comes next based on their own experiences. The artist invites viewers to actively engage with her work, opting to use various visual mediums of painting, sculpture, and video instead of direct text media, metaphorically expressing events in her novels to create cracks in perception and leaving “unseen spaces” that can be filled with subjective judgments.

차혜림, 반향실 (echo chamber), 2024, oil on linen, 45.3X38cm

World-renowned and influential film critic André Bazin (1918~1958) once stated that the out-of-sight space beyond the screen is more important than what is shown on screen. The off-screen space is a manifestation of personal experiences, where viewers tap into their own histories to actively make interpretations rather than take in the creator’s intended meaning. This is in line with Bazin’s concept that a movie frame is a window to the world beyond the screen, and the unrestrictedness of the off-screen realm transforms film from being a one-way communication medium with viewers to a two-way, interactive one. Cha adopts this film theory as a motif to take on the role of a “vanishing mediator” to make formative attempts to facilitate the relationship between the unseen world and reality through her work.

차혜림, 정오의 분할, 2024, oil on linen, 39.78×40.2cm

Characters in Cha’s novel are divided into parts: commander, observer, sympathizer, and actor, from a content aspect. For Eternal Return_Black, Cha zooms in on figures assuming observing roles, transferring to respective canvases the stories surrounding “Black, the missing person.” The exhibition is a state of irony far removed from the essence of the situation – the disappearance – filled only with an abundance of rumors. It strikes an eerie resemblance to the real world, where we only see portions of the truth cut out by someone without knowing the full stories that exist outside the frame. Cha explores another aspect of the inner and outer realms of the frame through her work, telling us, “We absolutely did not see a thing. The desperate cries outside the frame cannot infiltrate the smooth screen,” showing us that media captured moments are all but visual recordings of images far from the truth that has been already severed from reality.

차혜림, 한 각이 마모된 세계, 2024, oil on linen, 96.8×96.8cm

As such, Cha continues her exploration of the world beyond the painting and experimentation of the frame, conveyed through her work. She tells us, “This exhibition is the restructuring efforts of the residues that have yet to be sifted through the sieve of the world and captured on canvas,” welcoming viewers to freely bring their subjective experiences to continue their narratives outside the screen. Through Eternal Return_Black, we can imagine every nook and cranny of the world Cha has created for us, as if peering out a window, using pieces of the story she left fragmented as stepping-stones to soar across the boundary to the realm beyond of vast lingering imagery.

PIBI Gallery
125-6 Bukchon-ro, Jongro-gu, Seoul Korea (03053)
+82-2-6362-2004

WEBSITE  INSTAGRAM  YOUTUBE  ARTSY