Hyang Cho That’s How It Is
May 23 to July 19, 2009
Guelph artist Hyang Cho uses language as media to question the logic of authoritative systems including linguistic, mathematical, literary, musical, and pedagogical. For Cho, language is ambiguous and arbitrary, material and physical, and can be constructed and reconstructed. That’s How It Is featured Cho’s graphite drawings based on Two Part Inventions, which consists of fifteen scores for keyboard composed by Johann Sebastien Bach: a piece that eluded her musical ability but succumbed to her aesthetic manipulations.
Cho does not separate her materials from her process. Although her work may be located within a history of conceptual art, Cho’s concepts and ideas are ambiguous at the beginning of the project. Meaning is constructed and deconstructed through her processes; her concepts materialize through repetitive labour, through how she makes the physical work. Her repeated, mundane processes engender more questions about the authoritative systems (musical and aesthetic compositions) that are at play in the work. Cho’s processes are not linear, but cumulative, her works quiet yet demanding. They demand endurance from both the maker and the viewer to notice and to contemplate the space and time “in between” the marks on the page.
Hyang Cho was born in Seoul, Korea. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Sogang University (Seoul) and her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Alberta College of Art and Design (Calgary). Currently, Cho is a Master of Fine Art candidate in the School of Fine Art & Music at the University of Guelph. Recent exhibitions include Hit or Miss: An Exhibition of Contemporary Drawing at Triangle Gallery, Open System at Marion Nicoll Gallery, and That Which Remains at Little Gallery (all galleries based in Calgary). Cho has received numerous awards including the Canadian Federation of University Women’s Award (2009). She is a three-time recipient of the Jason Lang Scholarship (2004/5/6).
Images:
Left: untitled, 2009, graphite on paper
Right: untitled, 2009, graphite on paper