Koo Kyung Sook... Understanding Her Work

(Koo Kyung Sook and Ian Harvey)

Thursday, February 28, 2019, our Contemporary Art History class had a wonderful one on one experience with artist Koo Kyung Sook in the University Library Gallery at Sac State.  It is here where her experimental, contemporary art work is displayed.  Sook explained that although her work is figurative, there is no special concept and that she has no idea of an image before hand.  This collection of work is a presentation of her evolving as a two dimensional artist since 2004.  The images are constructed from “hundreds of improvised marks," then she creates works from there.  

The methods that Sook uses are sincerely exciting.  She makes marks with found objects such as bubble wrap.  For one of her pieces, she put a bag over her head, dipped her head in developer, then rubbed it all over the photo paper.  As a sculptor, she was always using her body.  She would make plaster bandage molds of herself, so this concept of using herself as a medium isn’t so foreign to her.  

 (developer on photo paper)

Sook also explains that her experience receiving medical treatment was a form of inspiration for her.  The concept that parts of our body are constantly working together to give us this life, this body is something that she uses in her work.  

As she moved further into her two dimensional experimentation, Sook decided that she wanted to avoid a clean, finished surface in her work.  She explains that she likes “physicality” in her art.  She began to do woodcuts.  The process to create a three dimensional surface is to put about thirteen layers of paper on the woodcuts, then three layers of laminate.  This allows for a tactile surface.  She says this process has no name because is has never been done before, however I think that when I try it one day I will call it the Koo Kyung Sook Method!

Sook also has created collages with broken woodcut pieces and in another work she and her husband, Ian Harvey, used business cards, enamel, shellac, alcohol, and oil.  She carves her wood blocks by hand and even chips away at her thick paper pieces with an exacto knife and glues other parts on.  Sook believes that “with misregistration comes movement,” and I think we can all agree that her work has a great deal of movement.  

(Koo Kyung Sook)

Koo Kyung Sook is very humble and acknowledges all the help she has received during her journey.  She declares, “All these new experiences open other doors.  A large part of this is due to the help of others.”  She spoke a great deal on this process being intuitive.  I enjoy hearing this because sometimes as an artist I feel as though I need to have a plan or a concept first then decide how to go about it.  Sook is living proof that anyone can just start creating and then see how it transforms. Her work is motivational and encourages me to go throw paint around my garage with objects I never would have thought of painting with.  

(Markings 18-1, 2018, relief wood cut and collage)

After speaking about her artistic process, inspirations, and mediums, Sook ends her time with us with this statement.  “What I’m saying here is not what I’m going to say next time.  It’s just natural and real.”  This reminds me of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self Reliance” when he speaks about consistency being the hobgoblin of little minds.  He writes, “Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again.” Sook is a great soul and is not afraid to step out of a “foolish consistency."  This is why her work is so captivating.  During the opening reception of the exhibit, I sat there staring at her work for quite some time just entranced with the movement and vibrations they create.  I feel grateful for witnessing her show and being allowed the opportunity to listen to Sook speak about her work. 

  

 (Sook speaking about her process with this piece)