Kyusung Jo

http://www.kyusungjo.com/

2011 MFA Yonsei Graduate School of Communication and Art,
                Media Art, Seoul Korea
2008 BFA Central Saint Martins College of Art, Fine Art, London UK
2005 AFA Seoul Institute of Arts, Photography, Seoul Korea

solo exhibitions
2011 Blow Up, Gallery2, Seoul Korea

group exhibitions
2011 Future Image, Gallery Palais de Seoul, Seoul Korea
         Ttoma Collaboration, Space101 Gallery, Seoul Korea
         Ttoma Sarogahty, Artonion Gallery, Tokyo Japan
2010 Art Carnival, 2010 Gangnam Fashion Festival, Seoul Korea
         Fetish, Media+Space Gallery, Seoul Korea
2008 Thirst, Beldam Gallery, London UK
         Artisit, Merchant Gallery, Galway Ireland
         Young Talented Artist, Carnaby st Gallery, London UK
2007 Plastic Bag Dress, Tescodisco Gallery, London UK

performances
2011 Dance Performance, Hollins Dance Group, Brussels Belgium
         Changing Spaces, Hollins Dance Group, Vienna Austria
2010 Seoul Free Music Festival,
         with Pianist Changsoo Park, Seoul Korea
         4th International Digital Moving Image Festival, Seoul Korea
         10th International Free Dance Festival,
         with Important Intangible Cultural Asset Yongbu Ha, Seoul Korea

Blow Up

Blow Up, work employs non-digital techniques to make surreal photographs. begun in 2007, in which he captures soap bubbles from different viewpoints within exotic backdrops of European nature.

The Bubble series, capturing ‘the momentary’ and a combination of coincidental elements
The Bubble series is a selection of artworks in which photographs are taken of soap bubbles whilst roaming around different parts of Europe, including Germany, Poland, and England. The soap bubbles may look like constructed images, but they are the actual materials that Jo made himself each time a photograph was taken. The influences of wind and humidity allow them to appear in multiple and constantly changing ways. They are characteristic of a sense of delicate existence, reflecting like glass, through their translucent bodies, the things that surround them. Based on ‘the momentary’, which disappears at the same moment that a camera’s shutter has been activated, Jo attempts to capture a combination of all the ‘coincidental’ elements at play in his surroundings.

The bubble in nature, a contrast between the natural and the artificial
The Bubble series reflects the European landscape throughout the four seasons, traversing dark coniferous forests and beautiful beaches bathed in warm sunlight. All the sites were intentionally selected as places that haven’t been marked by human traces, in order to maximize the contrast between the natural and the artificial, a persistent theme within the artist’s work. Soap-bubbles, as features from our ordinary, everyday lives, appear to transform into unfamiliar objects when relocated to a most unexpected backdrop of nature. A chain of interpretations or significances can be derived in a number of different ways, depending on the freedom of the viewer’s imagination.

Photographs created entirely through analogue means.
What is particularly fascinating is the fact that the series was produced using analogue techniques rather than digital. In addition, the photographer works by wandering around without a pre-determined location. Solely relying on manual cameras, Jo grappled with the soap-bubbles and nature, both of which were thoroughly uncontrollable and unpredictable. The artist finally succeeded in capturing ‘decisive moments’ after significant amounts of trial and error. This is perhaps the reason why viewers can relate to a sense of the genuine within these seemingly unreal scenes.

The Bubble series holds meaning in the way it traces the journey of a soap-bubble, at the same time as it captures the trajectory of the artist hidden behind the camera.