Culture

BRETT MCDOWELL GALLERY. Closes May 26.

The question which I often ask myself when encountering any ceramicist’s work is how have they transferred a medium which is thousands of years old and which always appears to me to be static into something dynamic.

 
Suji Park is an Auckland-based artist whose first solo exhibition, That which opens, combines ceramics with illustration and watercolour. That which opens consists of a room filled with methodically arranged white wooden plinths at an array of heights, as if the viewer were sliding through a maze of tiny islands, gazing upon each of these clusters of creatures. The arrangement creates a feeling of dislocation, which can be likened to that created by the ethnographically-charged space of a museum.

 
Park’s clay creatures have strange, macabre, twisted body shapes, yet are composed of Schiele-like figurative elements, as each is christened in splashes of autonomous colour and marked by expressive graphite lines. It is as though the process is a matter of chance. This is evident by the process of change from rough, disproportionately rendered clay, which is seemingly then moulded and transformed into these various and yet unsettling human-animal creatures. This is achieved by the simple stroke of a graphite pencil and the smearing of watercolour, staining the clay into an amalgamation of different colours carrying rhythmic properties.

 
The twelve distorted human figures in Sermon (2011) appear as if they are unaware that they are nude, which instils a sense of vulnerability in the viewer when gazing upon these engrossingly detailed figures. What is particularly striking about all the human figures in this exhibition is their gestural subtlety, for example the simple clasping of each figure’s claw-like hands in many of the figures in Sermon. Park has captured a sense of individualism in each, through their emphasised facial features.
 

The totemic, nightmarish figures in Witching hour (2010) produce the unnerving feeling of being watched. There is an undercurrent of unease surrounding these figures who willfully stare into your eyes. Two of the trio are vividly coloured, hauntingly evil and ever watchful half man/bird creatures, while the third of the trio is a teeth-baring, red-eyed bear seemingly ready to attack you at any given point. This uneasiness is also experienced when encountering Conspiracy (2011), which depicts a human figure secretly communicating with a sphinx-like creature. The viewer feels as if they are witnessing the detailing of a deadly secret.
 

Set aside from the maze of islands is a singular lowered plinth to the left of the gallery, which contains figures with more of a degree of lightness. Swimmers (2010) is the most playful and light-hearted work in the exhibition. It consists of two human figures of distorted proportions and relaxed dispositions, seemingly sunbathing in the gallery. Park has further exaggerated the bodies through their gestures and cartoonish facial arrangements.
 

To some degree it seems that Suji Park is engaging with and paying homage to a range of historical references. Liars (2010-11) depicts a figure performing hand puppetry, seemingly a reference to ancient Chinese shadow puppetry. Park purposefully damaged one of her works, Monolith (2010), to give it the appearance of an archaeological relic thousands of years old. Works such as these recreate the sense of dislocation experienced in a museum. Suji Park’s That which opens is otherworldly, eerie and entices the viewer to gaze beyond that which is presented in front of them.