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From Columbus Dispatch
Paper Works Reflect Culture of Consumers
By Christopher A. Yates
Although they employ dissimilar techniques, Susan Li O'Connor and Cheong-ah Hwang both offer engaging looks at consumer culture and merchandising. In the Mahan Gallery, their works - wisely separated - are presented on two long walls. Both work in paper, with vastly different results. O'Connor's mixed-medium collages pit the personal against the impersonal and the individual against the crowd. Each piece features images of women from fashion magazines and advertisements. Combined with other elements, the figures take on different personas. They are in essence toys to be manipulated, controlled and displayed. By day, O'Connor is a fashion retailer. In that role, she is a conduit and an accomplice in the manipulation of the masses. Her art acknowledges that merchandising is a game and that notions of play guide her hand. A series of 50 finger puppets is featured in her merchandising nightmares.In The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round, cutouts of female figures wrap around the words of the familiar children's song. Just as the song offers an endless stream of verses, so too does the effective merchandiser. But while there is a marked uneasiness in many of her pieces, O'Connor does not take a specific position about consumer culture. Instead, she observes and translates.
Hwang's sculptures and wall-mounted reliefs engage the viewer on many levels. Each piece has two elements: a three-dimensional paper model of a common mass-produced product and an enlarged two-dimensional arrangement of the model's parts. Each two-dimensional relief has the potential to become a three- dimensional object.
Hwang uses several products common to a medicine cabinet. While removing all text, she keeps the colors and logos of each product close to the original. Whether in two or three dimensions, each product is surprisingly easy to identify. Such ease of recognition points to how successfully advertisers imprint colors and shapes onto the public's subconscious.
Both artists force a consideration of the consumer's place and participation in a society driven by merchandising, branding and product placement. August 13, 2004
From Columbus Dispatch
Paper shapes form exhibition
Creative use of medium separates sculptor's work from the pack Cheong-ah Hwang is a young artist who is alive with ideas and a sense of fun. The exhibition of her latest paper-relief sculpture at the Ohio Art League Gallery reveals a wonderfully imaginative use of her material and a remarkable handling of the medium. With the flat, two-dimensional material, cut and shaped, Hwang creates three-dimensional objects with surprising assertiveness. In Updo, a large representation of a swept-up hairdo seen from the back, she achieved elaborate clusters of curls with carefully cut loops of white paper. The hairlike paper, smoothed upward, seems to grow up from the nape with a suggestion of volume, while delicate contours create the appearance of a neck and ears. Everything is hand cut, Hwang said. She makes sketches then blows up their scale, paying close attention to the relationship of the parts. In Liar, the artist fools the spectator's eye into believing in the presence of a human body under a bed sheet. But there is no body, and the sheet is make of mulberry paper. She achieved the illusion by placing a large, wet sheet of paper over a human figure, then blow-drying the paper before removing it. The final result looks like the real thing, especially so because it is life size. Occupied, which gives its title to the show, is a very small, subtle piece, quite different from other works. It looks somewhat like a shadowbox, with the vague shape of a seated human form functioning in and undefined space. "It is about human presence" Hwang said, "as all (the works in the show) are about the physical and visual impressions made by human beings."
Loop Dude also is different. It functions in space rather than being hung on the wall, and it is brightly colored where all the other works in the show are white. With its legs in red pants hanging from the veiling and the red-clad head (with ear phones) and shoulders, Loop Dude truly is a fun piece.
Hwang was born in Korea and came to the United States in 1992. She studied art and technology at Ohio State University, then began making paper-relief sculptures in 2000. There is much promise in her work. -Jacqueline Hall
From Columbus ALIVE
This Paper Recycles
The functional becomes decorative twice over in the works of South Korean artist Cheong-ah Hwang, currently on display at the North Oak Gallery. With exquisite, meticulous detail, she embosses, cuts, pastes, punctures and scores paper to recreate objects that look good while they serve a purpose.
Sometimes sinister connotations arise. An ivory corset forms a shape not found in nature, popping out of its frame in three-dimensional curves. A rooster (is he an alarm clock, or food?) is rendered in a complicated assemblage of folded paper feathers.
The artist takes an entire wall to present miniature visions of details from restored Victorian homes. Doors and windows appear with a wonderful depth, holding frosted glass made from something like tissue that allows a peek at gossamer curtains.
"I began my paper sculpture with exploring what paper can do," Hwang said at the show's opening. "[The houses] are all really well decorated. People put their energy into making them beautiful." But there is a dark side to such gorgeous possessions: "They're so precious, they're untouchable."
Bone Shoes, a visual companion piece to her corset, presents footwear like something out of a fairy tale. Along with the inherent untouchable factor attached to art on the wall, these shoes are like new white carpet-extravagant but intimidating. Tissue keeps them perfectly shaped, and a price tag is still looped around one buckle. The price tag is a reminder that the artist, in her way, is questioning the value and purpose of art itself, but that doesn't mean one can't take her interpretation of an object home. "It's the same thing when people buy it," she said with an infectious grin. "It's a circle." Adorned, paper sculpture by Cheong-ah Hwang, hangs at North Oak Gallery through November 30. For gallery hours, dial 268-5075. -Melissa Starker October 4, 2001
Paper Works Reflect Culture of Consumers
By Christopher A. Yates
Although they employ dissimilar techniques, Susan Li O'Connor and Cheong-ah Hwang both offer engaging looks at consumer culture and merchandising. In the Mahan Gallery, their works - wisely separated - are presented on two long walls. Both work in paper, with vastly different results. O'Connor's mixed-medium collages pit the personal against the impersonal and the individual against the crowd. Each piece features images of women from fashion magazines and advertisements. Combined with other elements, the figures take on different personas. They are in essence toys to be manipulated, controlled and displayed. By day, O'Connor is a fashion retailer. In that role, she is a conduit and an accomplice in the manipulation of the masses. Her art acknowledges that merchandising is a game and that notions of play guide her hand. A series of 50 finger puppets is featured in her merchandising nightmares.In The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round, cutouts of female figures wrap around the words of the familiar children's song. Just as the song offers an endless stream of verses, so too does the effective merchandiser. But while there is a marked uneasiness in many of her pieces, O'Connor does not take a specific position about consumer culture. Instead, she observes and translates.
Hwang's sculptures and wall-mounted reliefs engage the viewer on many levels. Each piece has two elements: a three-dimensional paper model of a common mass-produced product and an enlarged two-dimensional arrangement of the model's parts. Each two-dimensional relief has the potential to become a three- dimensional object.
Hwang uses several products common to a medicine cabinet. While removing all text, she keeps the colors and logos of each product close to the original. Whether in two or three dimensions, each product is surprisingly easy to identify. Such ease of recognition points to how successfully advertisers imprint colors and shapes onto the public's subconscious.
Both artists force a consideration of the consumer's place and participation in a society driven by merchandising, branding and product placement. August 13, 2004
From Columbus Dispatch
Paper shapes form exhibition
Creative use of medium separates sculptor's work from the pack Cheong-ah Hwang is a young artist who is alive with ideas and a sense of fun. The exhibition of her latest paper-relief sculpture at the Ohio Art League Gallery reveals a wonderfully imaginative use of her material and a remarkable handling of the medium. With the flat, two-dimensional material, cut and shaped, Hwang creates three-dimensional objects with surprising assertiveness. In Updo, a large representation of a swept-up hairdo seen from the back, she achieved elaborate clusters of curls with carefully cut loops of white paper. The hairlike paper, smoothed upward, seems to grow up from the nape with a suggestion of volume, while delicate contours create the appearance of a neck and ears. Everything is hand cut, Hwang said. She makes sketches then blows up their scale, paying close attention to the relationship of the parts. In Liar, the artist fools the spectator's eye into believing in the presence of a human body under a bed sheet. But there is no body, and the sheet is make of mulberry paper. She achieved the illusion by placing a large, wet sheet of paper over a human figure, then blow-drying the paper before removing it. The final result looks like the real thing, especially so because it is life size. Occupied, which gives its title to the show, is a very small, subtle piece, quite different from other works. It looks somewhat like a shadowbox, with the vague shape of a seated human form functioning in and undefined space. "It is about human presence" Hwang said, "as all (the works in the show) are about the physical and visual impressions made by human beings."
Loop Dude also is different. It functions in space rather than being hung on the wall, and it is brightly colored where all the other works in the show are white. With its legs in red pants hanging from the veiling and the red-clad head (with ear phones) and shoulders, Loop Dude truly is a fun piece.
Hwang was born in Korea and came to the United States in 1992. She studied art and technology at Ohio State University, then began making paper-relief sculptures in 2000. There is much promise in her work. -Jacqueline Hall
From Columbus ALIVE
This Paper Recycles
The functional becomes decorative twice over in the works of South Korean artist Cheong-ah Hwang, currently on display at the North Oak Gallery. With exquisite, meticulous detail, she embosses, cuts, pastes, punctures and scores paper to recreate objects that look good while they serve a purpose.
Sometimes sinister connotations arise. An ivory corset forms a shape not found in nature, popping out of its frame in three-dimensional curves. A rooster (is he an alarm clock, or food?) is rendered in a complicated assemblage of folded paper feathers.
The artist takes an entire wall to present miniature visions of details from restored Victorian homes. Doors and windows appear with a wonderful depth, holding frosted glass made from something like tissue that allows a peek at gossamer curtains.
"I began my paper sculpture with exploring what paper can do," Hwang said at the show's opening. "[The houses] are all really well decorated. People put their energy into making them beautiful." But there is a dark side to such gorgeous possessions: "They're so precious, they're untouchable."
Bone Shoes, a visual companion piece to her corset, presents footwear like something out of a fairy tale. Along with the inherent untouchable factor attached to art on the wall, these shoes are like new white carpet-extravagant but intimidating. Tissue keeps them perfectly shaped, and a price tag is still looped around one buckle. The price tag is a reminder that the artist, in her way, is questioning the value and purpose of art itself, but that doesn't mean one can't take her interpretation of an object home. "It's the same thing when people buy it," she said with an infectious grin. "It's a circle." Adorned, paper sculpture by Cheong-ah Hwang, hangs at North Oak Gallery through November 30. For gallery hours, dial 268-5075. -Melissa Starker October 4, 2001