Bon Voyage
June 13 – July 13 2013
Curated by Taehyun Kim

Gallery HO is pleased to announce the opening of Bon Voyage, a one-person exhibition by Mr. Jong Shik Shin (b.1958) from South Korea, on June 13, 2013.  This is the first colo exhibition by Mr. Shin at the Gallery HO. The Exhibition will run through July 13, 2013.
Bon Voyage invites viewers on an imaginary journey in time.  Occupying a large part of the gallery floor, the installation is composed of a number of delicate buildings, streets, and plazas in white clay, comprising an undeniably precious and distinctive structure that resembles an old city of ancient Europe.  A number of photographs and paintings of his imaginary city will be displayed on the gallery walls, capturing a sudden reappearance of historical memories that have been lost with the passage of time.
Mt. Shin’s art is about an imaginary trip through time, revisiting the forgotten past and exciting a deep sense of nostalgia for old culture. While sculpting the handmade clay objects, the artist’s fingerprints are lest on their surfaces, indicating stories o human lives, changing landscapes of a civilization, and permanent marks that cannot be easily erased.
Mr. Shin’s interest in ancient civilizations began when he was in his 20’s and studied the history of ancient architecture in Paris. His Keen sense of civilization enables him to discover alternative or revised history by finding ancient origins in today’s concrete jungle.
Symbols of ancient urban landscapes such as abbeys, Doric columns, public square fountains, monuments, Trojans, obelisks, castles, and watchtowers suggest an ideal city, concurrently guiding the viewers to imaginatively travel into the past.  An additional interesting point of the installation is that the white clay fired at a high temperature is a medium that stems from ancient Chinese culture.
Images of plant or fish fossils and ammonites in his paintings introduce an imaginary world that freely goes beyond our tangible experience limited by time, connecting myths, legends, and history.  Works on view include new watercolor paintings that the artist has specially produced for this particular exhibition. 
 
Jong Shik Shin
Well known for his symbolic objects and allegories, Mr. Jong Shik Shin is an artist and a professor of Fine Arts at Hong-Ik University.  Mr. Shin graduated from Hong-Ik University in Seoul, South Korea, studied at the Nationale Superieure Des Beaux-Arts de Paris, and earned a Master’s degree from the Universite de Saint-Denis, Paris VIII.  He was awarded a Golden Medal from the 2005 Beijing Art Expo, the Donga Misul Prize at the 1990 Donga Misul Festival, the Henri Matisse Prize from the 1989 Mediterranean Biennale, among the other prizes.  He has actively presente his work in over 300 exhibitions from 1999 to 2013.
As a “journey messenger,” the artists is presenting them as the main characters of each times, informs various aspects to the spectators who are seeking unknown mysterious cities.  The past world he had seen was not only that is still constituted of God and man’s opposing relationship, but also that is the pillars which are connecting the sky and the earth.  The pillars frequently appearing in the paintings are not only symbolizing the power pursuing man’s victory, but also representing God’s eternity.  (Kim, Bok Young, 2007)