Shin Insoo
Taoist Intervals
(Between Earth and Sky)
Robert C. Morgan
The mystery, and perhaps, origin of the universe can be found in a drop of rainwater. I read this in a statement by the artist Shin Insoo while reflecting on this phenomenon in relation to her work. I was immediately taken by the Taoist reverence of such a statement, as by her manner folding time within space, and space within time, inward and outward, within the same moment. This feeling of simultaneity Shin compares to the sparkling raindrop that might as well represent the duration of a human life. On this planet in this galaxy and as part of an evolving and expanding universe, nothing really progresses beyond the instant in which we realize our creative potential. We are divine beings within human bodies. We are born from parents living on this planet for a purpose never entirely known to us.
I understand the artist Shin Insoo as a kind of metaphysician, but I do not know to what degree she is Confucian or Aristotelian. Perhaps her view of universe is both, a kind of synthesis between the sky and the earth, or more accurately, within the interval of earth and sky. This interval involves both time and space. Together they are one phenomenon. The work of Shin Insoo resides in a place where the subtle vibrations of this space-time phenomenon reveal what might be called a relativist moment, a place where the languages of earth and sky intercept one another, communicating on their own accord. Earth communicates with the sky as iron communicates with trees in which the paper pulp derived from mulberry trees emerges in various thicknesses, mixing with minerals and sumi ink into labyrinthine or grid-like forms. Within her compositions (or anti-compositions), one may discover ineluctable surfaces in which small blocks of iron are interwoven between threads of paper pulp or surfaces where linear patterns emerge as tiny threads tinted with iron rust. The variations between the iron, sumi ink, and Dak pulp (organically derived from mulberry trees, often referred to as hanji), are compressed together or spread out against a luminous surface, often divided between black (ink) and white (Dak).
As with many contemporary artists working in Korea, Shin Insoo uses a single word as an ongoing title. In her case, the word is Respiration. The title may also function as a theme or a concept, which are not necessarily the same. Whereas a theme suggests a surface phenomenon in terms of how the artist’s word may appear, a concept is considered more layered, more in-depth and profound, as it moves into deeper strata of feeling and associations of thought. Even so, a concept needs to make contact with materials and processes. It is realized over time as variations of form begin to evolve. In the work of Shin, there are many variations as to how material is employed in relation to her concept. Respiration is about the process of how materials breathe in relation to one another, particularly if the materials are coming from opposite ends of nature. For example, iron comes from beneath the ground, while organic Dak paper comes from above ground, from mulberry trees. Shin Insoo goes for the concept more than the theme. Her interests extend between the simple telling of something already known into the realm of the unknown universe where opposites merge as a single force, a presence that hovers in reality, as explained in the Tao te Ching.
Earth and sky exist paradoxically in relation to one another, like the role of the human in relation to nature, or like Shin’s materials, iron and Dak. Her materials are made organically from what is found beneath and above the earth. As opposites, they are unique manifestations of nature, yet they are inextricably bound to one another. In this sense, they are consistent with the teachings of the Tao te Ching, Shin explains in her own words:
“They breathe in different worlds, the upper and underground world. However, they may communicate with each other through an unexpected point of contact in their languages. Their encounter is not by chance, but an inevitable consequence.”
Put another way, chance and randomness are not the same. When an event is perceived close-up, one may be induced to equate certain unlikely encounters with chance, i.e. discovering an old friend in an unlikely place or
encountering someone in a crowd wearing the same jacket or dress that you are. However, if these “coincidental” events are seen from a longer or wider perspective, one might be inclined to understand a certain rationale as to how and why they occurred. As a result, what was seen according to chance from a limited “close-up” perspective might be understood as a random occurrence when perceived from a greater distance. Therefore, the nature of
communication (or communication of nature) described by the artist Shin Insoo is something that occurs as “an inevitable consequence,” which is to suggest that it occurs as part of a random order.
One might consider that nature is more given to randomness than it is chance. This may be due to the following: one, significant communication takes longer to happen, that is, it requires time; and two, for communication to have significance, one needs to be consistently alert to one’s environment.
Shin’s work has a primary aspect in that formally it appears removed from nature, as suggested in the Suprematism by the Russian painter Malevich.
Shin’s isolated forms, grids, and labyrinths, would appear more related to a formal state of mind than to an imitation of nature. What gives these formal states of mind over to art is her manner of thinking, her way of ordering the linear elements in row, adding geometric planes, interruptions, as if to hold the flow and thus contain the rhythm, to create a form of stasis within the illusionist confines of motion. I feel this is precisely what she means by respiration. To respire is to breathe out, to give breathe to the viewer, and in exchange, to receive the power of the work, the language of the form, prescribed through nature in according with the source of air, the energy that moves within us all, the air-flow that moves between artist and viewer. The art of Shin Insoo depends on communication between ground and air, between earth and sky.
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Author of many essays and reviews on the work of Korean artists, Robert C. Morgan teaches in the graduate program of fine arts at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York and at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. He was the recipient of a Fulbright senior scholar fellowship in 2005 in which he did research on original signs and symbols in Korean art in Gwangju.