AHL Foundation



	2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2005	Flora & Fauna December 05 - January 15, 2010 Riverside Gallery Artists Aegi Changsuk Park, Ha Rhin Kim AHL Foundation, Inc. is pleased to announce its exhibition entitled, “Flora & Fauna” presenting works by Aegi Changsuk Park and Ha Rhin Kim With diverse inspiration ranging from simple floral and modern wild reflections of ancient organisms to human bodies, this eclectic body of paintings creates a new habitat for the viewers. Aegi Changsuk Park takes the form of life: flora enters her art in forms of portrait paintings in the simple watercolor medium. Nevertheless, she renders flowers that are innervated yet concomitantly passive and fragile; she never fails to address their resiliency and innate power. Ms. Park’s humble beginning as an artist is the origin of with her femininity of approach. She looks at each flower as an individual and suggests their complex allusions, solitude and infancy. Her earlier collections reflect the reminiscence of her empathy with small subjects and delivers the artist’s own intimate essays in complex contemporary life. Consequently, her portraits are fashioned into introspective and contemplative figures. She calls her flower painting collection “Portraits of Fragile Aspects in Childhood.” This form of life seems to always re-emerge; even her recent painting projects that are relevant to social concerns. Ha Rhin Kim utilizes human bodies as working surfaces on which she imposes and juxtaposes the pattern of botany to invoke the ancient origins of contemporary life. With mysterious forces, the artist depicts the growth pattern of branches or feathery shapes tattooed onto skin. These curvilinear patterns portray human figures in her paintings. She crosses the boundaries of a wide range of media: two dimensional surface, video, installation and performance. Works such as Humanoid Herb, Rotte Tree 2004-18 and others provoke the viewer to imagine some sort of wild exotic creatures, mutants or mythological reptilians. Her art explores and reveals the idea that the human being is still ‘in process’. Many cultures consider tattoo practice a taboo; however, she dared to tattoo botanic growth patterns on bodies as a reinforcing agent to explore human nature that is ‘in process’. While the startling images of her works capture the viewers by surprise, her art offers redemption of Nature. ^ Top Wonsook Kim: Forest Scenes Curated by Eun Young Choi October 1-October 21, 2009 Arario Gallery New York Artist Wonsook Kim The AHL Foundation is pleased to present the 43rd solo exhibition of Wonsook Kim to be held at Arario Gallery NY. The exhibition will include Kim’s newest series of paintings based on Schumann’s Waldszenen (Forest Scenes), Op. 82 as well as numerous small drawings and an earlier large scale work titled “Till We Have Faces” based on the book by C.S. Lewis. Wonsook Kim’s paintings almost always seem to be performing a gentle spiritual dance. In the series Forest Scenes Kim’s signature curvilinear lines and gestural brushstrokes of ink on paper capture the poetic beauty of Schumann’s music by creating a wondrous mythical forest populated with enchanting winged angels, sensuous floating lovers, profit birds, and whimsical dancing figures with swaying branches for limbs. Amidst the starry constellation and bellowing feathers fairytale-like narratives unfold in the darkness of the forest. Utilizing the Eastern calligraphic style, the fluidity and facility of Kim’s brushwork lends spontaneity and gestural freedom to her work. The apparent naiveté of her simplified forms subvert her highly sophisticated and powerful control over her medium. Calligraphy’s directness of expression along with subtle washes of ink/color and ambiguity of lines convey immediacy and openness of the moment as Kim merges the poetic and the mythical, the human and natural worlds. “Till We Have Faces” illustrates the tale of Psyche and Cupid retold from the perspective of Orual, the “ugly” older sister. Kim adopts allegorical and metaphorical representation to reveal universal notions of faith, love, forgiveness, and redemption. A sense of timelessness exists in Kim’s work along with a recognition of something familiar in our own lives. By combining her autobiographical experiences with myths she creates a unique poetic vision that is at once universal and touchingly personal. Wonsook Kim’s work has been exhibited and collected widely. She has held solo exhibitions throughout the US, Canada, Germany, France, Bulgaria, Spain, Brazil, Italy, Japan, and Korea. Public collections include the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Ringling Museum of Art (Sarasota, FL), North Dakota Museum of Art, Illinois State University Museum, National Museum of Women In the Arts (Washington, D.C.), National Museum of Contemporary Art (Korea), Leeum Museum of Art (Korea), Sunjae Museum (Korea), Watari Museum of Contemporary Art (Japan), and the Vatican Collection (Italy). Kim studied at Hong-Ik University and holds a BFA and MFA from Illinois State University. ^ Top Eclectic Visionaries VISUAL ARTS COMPETITION AWARD WINNERS 2009 Curated by Hyewon Yi August 18 – August 29, 2009 Gana Art New York Artists Jinkee Choi, Jarrett Min Davis, Yeon Jin Kim, Jeonghyun Lee, Kakyoung Lee, Jaye Moon THE AHL FOUNDATION is pleased to present Eclectic Visionaries: The AHL Foundation Visual Arts Competition Award Winners 2009, an exhibition of works by six Korean artists living and working in the United States. AHL Foundation’s sixth annual competition jurors were Nathalie Anglès, former director of the International Residency Program, Location One; Melissa Chiu, director of the Asia Society and Museum; and Benjamin Genocchio, art critic for the New York Times. The AHL Foundation is a nonprofit organization formed in 2003 to support Korean artists living in the United States and dedicated to promoting exposure of their work in the contemporary art world. In 2004, the Foundation established an annual competition open to artists of Korean ancestry living in the United States. AHL awarded four monetary prizes each year and has been mounting bi-annual exhibitions to display the winning works. Beginning last year, AHL made the winner’s exhibition an annual event, and this year for the first time, the jurors extended their selection to six artists. Common characteristics of this year’s entries are heightened levels of color along with playful references to Surrealism and Pop Art. Despite the originality of their work, these artists’ techniques are relatively traditional: whether painting, sculpture, installation, or video, they reveal evidence of construction by employing elements of assemblage and collage. But the notion of making invoked in these artworks is less about craftsmanship than it is about the truthful and compelling realization of concepts. These six eclectic visionaries give us a wide range of ideas in diverse media displaying exceptional visual power, striking originality, formal sophistication, and a discreet sense of humor. ^ Top Korean-American Awards Exhibit June 11-June 27 Nabi Gallery Artists Sung Ho Choi, Jungsu Han, Jane Jin Kaisen, Haegeen Kim, and Aegi Park ^ Top Abstractions and Contractions Curated by Eun Young Choi March 7 – March 29, 2009 Exhibiting Artists: Lisha Bai, Ivin Ballen, Ethan Greenbaum, Geujin Han, Benjamin S. Jones, Sandra Eula Lee, Zaun Lee, Aurora Robson, Aili Schmeltz, Sun Youa Abstractions and Contractions brings together ten exciting artists whose work deal with the complex process of creating varying degrees of abstract work. The word abstraction may bring to mind the act of considering something as a general characteristic, a secret removal, or an unrealistic and visionary idea. Contraction may refer to a shortening or thickening of muscle fibers, a stage in wound healing, or a decrease in economic growth. Although they are two very different words the result of abstracting or contracting something may converge on some common ground, an end product that is more constricted, reduced, and condensed yet more compelling, expanded and intensified. Abstraction in art may refer to work that seem detached and uninvolved on the one end and emotionally charged and lyrical on the other. It exists along a continuum where the departure from realistic depiction can be slight to complete. The artists in Abstractions and Contractions examine color, line and form from their surroundings like the hills of Los Angeles, vinyl kitchen floors, Formica countertops, Lego blocks, and toilet paper rolls to compose fascinating compositions that transform the ordinary into an interplay between the real and the surreal while referencing a long history of abstract art. Abstractions and Contractions is part of an annual exhibition program sponsored by the AHL Foundation and is being hosted by Lumenhouse this year. The AHL Foundation was established to support cultural and artistic events with the purpose of building a wider public awareness of the contributions of Korean-American artists to contemporary art. It aims to discover talented artists and provide them with an opportunity to further their creative activities by providing grants and exhibitions. While the Foundation concentrates most of its resources to build awareness and support for artists of Korean descent, the goal of this exhibition is to foster the exchange of ideas between artists of Korean and non-Korean heritage and to nurture all underrepresented artists at large regardless of their cultural background. ^ Top




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