Koh San Keum, departing from painting canvases, gets rid of the meaning from texts and materializes them, using artificial pearls or metal beads on a white wood or black metal panel. In her early days, Koh would choose as her object nails, thread, cloth, wax, and silicon paste, which heighten the tension between the surface and the backdrop; or turn to knitting for her works. She has transformed a variety of texts―including news articles, poems, novels, popular songs, declarations, and pandects―into symbolic metaphors of diverse cultural and social phenomena. In her works, the letters, whether it be English or Korean Alphabet, or Chinese characters, are replaced with pearl beads, but the space between letters are left the way they are in the original text. In the process, the original text’s lyricism, popularity, and modernity all fade into the silence of the pearls. Koh treats letters just as a material, which is to be changed and “translated” into pearl beads. Stripped of meaning, the letters are transposed into an element for a precise calculation involving the number of letters per line or page. This process transports the letters from the realm of meaning to that of form, and as a result, the only thing left is their visuality. The rhythm created by the arrangement of pearls reveals the differences, spaces, and blanks between letters, usually hidden behind their meanings. Koh’s working tools include a wood panel that is colored with acrylic paint about 100 times, graph paper pasted on it, a square rule, a plastic container filled with four millimeter pearl beads, a glue gun, and tweezers. Her work process involves transcribing the part of a book she found most impressive, deciding on the size of the panel and the number of letters that a pearl bead represents, and accurately adjusting the margins of the panel, using graph paper and a square rule. This mathematical and mechanical arrangement puts emphasis on visual aspects and aesthetic beauty. The above-mentioned transcription and the attachment of pearl beads are executed according to the number of letters and the space between them in the original text. The semantic context of the sentences disappears in the process, and morphologic and visual elements emerge in its place. Her work is impossible to read, but it generates a synesthetic experience with the letters read by her turning into a visible song and an audible image. Her works, replacing countless letters with white pearls, are a “translation” of our life stories as well as an attempt to “rebel” against the function of eyes.
Koh San Keum (b. 1966) received her bachelor’s and master’s degree from Ewha Womans University’s Painting Department, and degrees from the Pratt Institute. Her solo exhibitions include “Mist of signs four” at Gallery SUN Contemporary in 2007; “Mist of signs three” at Goyang Art Studio of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea, currently MMCA in 2007; “Typography + Transliteration” at Dr. Park Gallery in 2011; and “Homage to you” at Gallery SUN Contemporary in 2012. Koh has participated in group exhibitions including “SU: MBISORI” at Jeju Museum of Art in 2009; “The Shape of Time” at the 2010 Yeosu International Art Festival; “Primavere del bianco” at Museum of Art Seoul National University in 2010; and “Observing like Leonardo da Vinci” at Savina Museum of Contemporary Art in 2010. She is the recipient of a Special Selection Award of the 13th Joongang Fine Arts Prize (1991); and a runner-up at the 2008 POSCO Steel Art Award; and the 55 Contemporary Artists Selected by Critics under the Sponsorship of Monthly Chosun in 2007. Koh has participated in residency programs including the MMCA Residency Goyang (in 2006-2007); the Nomadic Arts Residency Program by the Arts Council of Mongolia in 2008; and the Gyeonggi Creation Center in 2010.
