Contemporary fine art brand
by jayden shin
Reframing the Canvas: Paintings with Narrative
During personal crises, I found myself still discovering beauty and hope despite the hardship. I believe the modern history of South Korea also shares the same mechanism of achieving prosperity despite destruction. This vitality and way of living is deeply linked to my art practice, guiding me to establish a methodology for discovering order within chaos, inspired by René Descartes’ concepts of a true order made through inner intuition.
In my exhibitions, four rectangular canvases are arranged in a non-linear grid, paired with a QR code that links to my literature. The text explores themes of contemporary human life, driven by my interest in what life is and how we should live. Each canvas presents visual sequences related to the narrative. By merging painting with cinematic montage and literature, storytelling returns to its historical place within art as it is reimagined as a contemporary visual episode of our lives.
Creation Process: Order within Chaos
My process of finding order within chaos and Henri Matisse's work influenced my colors and forms in painting. I begin by applying raw acrylic pigments based on what intuition reveals to my sight, bypassing predetermined knowledge of an entity. I then press the surface with paper to generate chaotic results. Afterward, by shaping the paint with palette knives guided by immediate visual stimuli, the true order of things is revealed.
Narrative Construction: Non-Linear Montages
Influenced by Sergei Eisenstein's montage theory, I intuitively organize my own reference photographs, allowing them to collide and generate new meanings. My work suggests that the effect (images) can occur first, while the cause (narrative) is constructed afterward. This inversion offers a perspective on life where we no longer need to question why the past happened, as past incidents could be inevitable events shaped by future outcomes. The arrangement of these sequences on a single plane regardless of chronological order erases the hierarchy between past and future and transforms time into dot-like incidents that can mutually influence one another.
