A Moment of Binary Oppositions Becoming Mono-nary

 

On the canvas, the pulse of the thickly rubbed paints entangles and reverberates. One could vividly feel the movement of someone who probably was holding a brush until just now, the certain someone whose mastery brought the paints to life. There are raw traces of the dry brush’s texture and careless handprints. A perfect geometrical figure sets the fences as the unconcentrated energy tries to diffuse in disarray. Completely diametrical to the freedom in strokes, regular polygons of perfect symmetry in angle and length emanate a curious sense of stability. Consistent compartments in planes and the difference in brightness between them create some profundity in the regular polygons. Through such depth, the regular polygons instantaneously transform into platonic solids and create a ‘room’. Paint diffuses confined within this room and appears to be dwelling in there.

 

There are always binary oppositions in Jae-seong Ryu’s paintings. A contrasting impression from warm and cool colors coexist and a slim, elongating stroke is juxtaposed with a sprayed, diffusing stroke. The paint shows contrast in its density by having an opaque lump and a transparent stain that allows the reflection of the surface of the canvas. As seen in Your Left (2023) and My Right (2023), his works feature a contrast of a mechanical stencil pattern or gradation technique seen in graphic design to handmade strokes, but usually the strokes are atypical whereas the frame of the canvas is typical. We see diversity in the form of the frame, from regular rectangles to triangles, hexagons, and octagons but the stability rising from the consistency in the length of the sides and the regularity in the angles is still powerful.

 

Unique forms of the frame and the paints of the diverse strokes lead the audience to focus on the matters themselves that compose the painting. But as a reaction to that forced attention, we try to see other things than a matter. And that is form. In Odyssey (2023), the face of the popular game character Super Mario is conspicuously depicted, and, in Touch! Catch! (2023), a caricature of animal faces is associated. However, as the forms are about to be connected to a certain narrative, our association cannot follow its track forward. In I am Right and You are Wrong (2023), we see faces emerging from different spots, these forms of faces would eventually return to individual strokes and diffuse as the atoms of the paint. The paint floats as an apparition-like form that imperceptibly wanders around the room and transforms into the lump of matter on the surface of the canvas in repeat.

 

When we see the paint that exists as a matter in Jaeseong Ryu’s painting, the canvas flattens out as a two-dimensional regular polygon. On the contrary, when we see a form, it deepens into a threedimensional platonic solid. Such a deep space is a space of illusion that the artist has constructed. Thanks to this construction, we see and imagine a ‘room’ from the mere existence of a flat canvas. Forms can only be manifested in this illusionary space. Yet, when we continue to gaze at the artist’s canvas, we see the paint as matter floating in the illusionary space without any clear form. It is a peculiar moment of plane and space colliding.

 

The problem that circulates plane and space is not only raised when the artist paints but when he tries to hang the complete work on a wall. The surface of the wall is yet another flat surface like the canvas, and the work is a type of space constructed on top of it. In the present exhibition, Jae-seong Ryu, again, places many works on the walls. Oftentimes, such a placement extends from the surface of the wall to the floor, becoming closer to an installation. For one, Squaring the Circle (2020) features an illusionary cuboid drawn on the plane attached to one side of the three-dimensional manifestation of the actual cuboid placed in spacetime. Despite the wish to remain within the canvas, the reason why the artist actively employs installation originates precisely from his active approach to the problem of plane and space.

 

As such, Jae-seong Ryu’s works are a cradle to different binary oppositions. The elements that compose the binary opposition are polarized on the extreme end of their spectrum. Placing these diametrically conflicting elements on two extremes completes a useful framework for dichotomy. The popular MBTI test also employs this framework. The test finds a dominant disposition from the four areas of personality types through a questionnaire that asks questions based on the scale of agreement to disagreement including a neutral. Test takers must answer the questions as fast as possible and refrain as much as possible from answering ‘neutral’.

 

However, in reality, the ego exists somewhere between the two polarities, constantly moving between them. During the test, we find ourselves hesitating to put our answer but by the time we get the results and our personality defined, the traces of contemplation will have disappeared. Even when one exhibits a strong inclination to one personality, one could, at times, perform on the opposite personality, as much as one could get fifty-fifty on the two opposing personalities. Jae-seong Ryu claims to have found such ambivalence in his ego from early on. Furthermore, he pays attention to the fact that painting, too, is established under such conflicting conditions. Whereas the canvas is fixed and typical, the paint is flexible and atypical. Such opposing ‘matters’ meet to create a ‘form’, constructing an illusionary three-dimensional ‘space’ on the existing two-dimensional ‘plane’.

 

Our epoch challenges and urges an exploration of the middle ground that cannot be reduced to mere dichotomy. While many artists entertain their interests in the ambiguous boundary between the binary opposites, Jae-seong Ryu, paradoxically, chooses an extreme dichotomy. His canvas shows the irony of reciprocity that occurs when two opposing things push their individual characteristics to each extreme. This method, however, entails risks, as the conflicting things might fall into each other’s slough and eventually become nothingness. In fact, the artist is continuously confronted with the collisions of two poles during his works. He must cultivate an equipoise in the tug-of-war between the two. In so doing, the artist cannot help but employ his own ambivalence. On one hand, he relies on his senses to improvise, and on the other hand, he executes his intention based on logic and reason.

 

And even when he achieves the equilibrium, his work is yet to be done. Because the equilibrium is not specified, the viewers must themselves become the pendulum between the two opposites. As the artist becomes confounded when he perceives his ambivalent ego, it is only natural that the viewers find his works to be confusing. For we have a tendency to find a settlement, such confusion often leads to anxiety. However, at a certain point, we find a balance between the apathetic yet stable space and the chaotic yet free plane, and it is precisely at this point where the binary oppositions evolve into an ideal relationship where each subsists and concurrently supports the other. Precisely at this moment when we come to an epiphany that these diametrically opposed things, despite being seemingly paralleled, are actually in a linear motion, Jae-seong Ryu’s canvases attain their true meanings. It is the moment where the binary oppositions come together and become one to be mono-rary.

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Eunseon Jeon