Herbarium of Moving Sensation
번역: 김미혜
Translated by Mihye Kim
움직이는 감각의 표본 집:정희라(미술평론,미술사)
Edited by Hee Ra, Jung
Plants embrace the world on the spot. They sense the light still, grope the air quietly, and feel the warmth minutely. They may appear to be staying silently in place, but they are actually in motion. Plants react on a different timescale. They perceive the world through their bodies, not through language. And they grow in secret, in unseen spaces. In this exhibition <Herbarium>, the organic form of plants becomes both an object of observation and a symbol of sensation. Artist So-yeon Chang presents plants as a framework for contemplating the state of being. What might we discover in the image of entangled roots of complex sensations?
Organic concepts of breath, line and trace
Flowing lines become someone’s memory, breath, or the trace of a body. In the work <숨청사초>(2022), the character’s actions evoke the passage of time we have lived through. The respirating figure in her work implies the significance of life. Rough lines, drawn from plants and hair, also represent untamed vitality. This is why So-yeon Chang focuses on plants in botanical gardens rather than those in the wild. The botanical garden is a kind of hypothetical nature. The world behind the glass walls is in good order – managed and arranged – but even there, plants grow into unique shapes with their own breath. This can be seen in the work <담쟁이 유적>(2025) as well. The form of ivy under the artificial bridge closely resembles an intimate trace of life, persistently moving. The artist’s perspective, which captures the organic forms of the unseen that surround us, is evident in <부레옥잠>(2024). The image of people floating in a swimming pool intersects with the form of aquatic plants drifting unrooted. They sense each other but do not merge. They collide but do not entangle. They spread out, but without deep roots. They show off their presence in various colors, yet never trespass upon one another.
A painting like a plant
The sensations of “now-here” are pressed into the paintings, much like a dehydrated specimen. Yet these sensations do not settle like plants rooted in the ground. Like water hyacinths on the water’s surface, or ivy under a bridge, they move persistently. During her painting process, the artist encounters both the unpredictable nature of painting and the uncontrollable vitality of plants. Her work involves peeling by hand the lines drawn with transparent liquid – a process that yields lines even the artist herself cannot predict. This results in irregular rhythms and atypical patterns. In this way, the symbolic forms of plants in her paintings meet the pictorial creativity formed by natural spread. This abiogenetic organic form is not merely a replica – it is a pictorial experiment exploring the structure of sensation.
The paintings of So-yeon Chang resemble the natural world we see around us. The organic forms of the beings captured through her gaze are like an informal herbarium. The forms of plants – managed but not controlled, confined but always open – reflect the attributes of a herbarium: dried yet alive, dehydrated yet still inspiring. So-yeon Chang’s <Herbarium> asks: Where are you situated now? What are you sensing with? And where are you headed?
2025.07. ACK 발행. ACK (artcritickorea) 글의 저작권은 필자에게 있습니다. July. 2025. Published by ACK. The copyright of the article published by ACK is owned by its author.
Herbarium of Moving Sensation
번역: 김미혜
Translated by Mihye Kim
움직이는 감각의 표본 집:정희라(미술평론,미술사)
Edited by Hee Ra, Jung
Plants embrace the world on the spot. They sense the light still, grope the air quietly, and feel the warmth minutely. They may appear to be staying silently in place, but they are actually in motion. Plants react on a different timescale. They perceive the world through their bodies, not through language. And they grow in secret, in unseen spaces. In this exhibition <Herbarium>, the organic form of plants becomes both an object of observation and a symbol of sensation. Artist So-yeon Chang presents plants as a framework for contemplating the state of being. What might we discover in the image of entangled roots of complex sensations?
Organic concepts of breath, line and trace
Flowing lines become someone’s memory, breath, or the trace of a body. In the work <숨청사초>(2022), the character’s actions evoke the passage of time we have lived through. The respirating figure in her work implies the significance of life. Rough lines, drawn from plants and hair, also represent untamed vitality. This is why So-yeon Chang focuses on plants in botanical gardens rather than those in the wild. The botanical garden is a kind of hypothetical nature. The world behind the glass walls is in good order – managed and arranged – but even there, plants grow into unique shapes with their own breath. This can be seen in the work <담쟁이 유적>(2025) as well. The form of ivy under the artificial bridge closely resembles an intimate trace of life, persistently moving. The artist’s perspective, which captures the organic forms of the unseen that surround us, is evident in <부레옥잠>(2024). The image of people floating in a swimming pool intersects with the form of aquatic plants drifting unrooted. They sense each other but do not merge. They collide but do not entangle. They spread out, but without deep roots. They show off their presence in various colors, yet never trespass upon one another.
A painting like a plant
The sensations of “now-here” are pressed into the paintings, much like a dehydrated specimen. Yet these sensations do not settle like plants rooted in the ground. Like water hyacinths on the water’s surface, or ivy under a bridge, they move persistently. During her painting process, the artist encounters both the unpredictable nature of painting and the uncontrollable vitality of plants. Her work involves peeling by hand the lines drawn with transparent liquid – a process that yields lines even the artist herself cannot predict. This results in irregular rhythms and atypical patterns. In this way, the symbolic forms of plants in her paintings meet the pictorial creativity formed by natural spread. This abiogenetic organic form is not merely a replica – it is a pictorial experiment exploring the structure of sensation.
The paintings of So-yeon Chang resemble the natural world we see around us. The organic forms of the beings captured through her gaze are like an informal herbarium. The forms of plants – managed but not controlled, confined but always open – reflect the attributes of a herbarium: dried yet alive, dehydrated yet still inspiring. So-yeon Chang’s <Herbarium> asks: Where are you situated now? What are you sensing with? And where are you headed?
2025.07. ACK 발행. ACK (artcritickorea) 글의 저작권은 필자에게 있습니다. July. 2025. Published by ACK. The copyright of the article published by ACK is owned by its author.