Weaving Pain

Weaving Pain

Weaving Pain

Weaving Pain

Meditation

Meditation

Meditation

Meditation (detail)

Untitled 1000

Untitled 1000

Untitled 108

Untitled (detail)

Weaving Pain

Weaving Pain

Weaving Pain

Beyond – Dark, Hole 1

Beyond – Dark, Hole 1

Beyond – Dark, Hole 3

Beyond – Dark, Hole 2

Beyond – Dark, Hole 2

A Circle Is Not A Circle 1

Beyond – Dark, Hole 3

A Circle Is Not A Circle 4-1

A Circle Is Not A Circle 4-1

A Square Is Not A Square 1

A Square Is Not A Square 1

Beyond – Yin

Beyond – Yin

Beyond – Yin

Beyond

Room for Meditation

Beyond 2 (detail)

Beyond 2 (detail)

Beyond 2

A Circle Is Not A Circle

Faced with a reality which lies beyond opposite concepts, physicists and mystics have to adopt a special way of thinking where the mind is not fixed in the rigid framework of classical logic, but keeps moving and changing its viewpoint.

From ‘Tao of Physics’ by Fritjof Capra.

The title of artworks, ‘A Circle is Not a Circle’, is inspired by a phrase, ‘Particles Are Also Waves’ from The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra, which has introduced me to a whole different perspective seeing the world. In The Tao of Physics Fritjof Capra describes the parallels between modern physics and Eastern mysticism by pointing out its paradoxical and non-logical nature of subatomic world and Eastern philosophy. To understand the fundamental truth of being, physicists used scientific evidence, theories and formulas to explain and describe truth in searching for the smallest basic block of which all materials are made. On the other hand sages from the East used observation of reality and direct experience as a metaphor to describe truth in attaining self-realization. I was truly amazed that two parties took a different route but eventually met at the same point.

In classical physics, the smallest unit composing matter—a molecule or an atom—is a solid, indestructible and isolated unit at rest. However, modern physics discovered that an atom consists of vast regions of space in which extremely small particles are moving with high velocity and are organically interconnected by electromagnetic force. Depending on how we look at them, they appear sometimes as particles, sometimes as waves. Subatomic units of matter are very abstract entities, which should be understood as mathematical quantities of ‘probability waves’[1] <#_ftn1> rather than a particle or a wave. The phenomena observed in the subatomic world by scientists revealed its paradoxical and non-logical feature, which is beyond our direct sensory experience in a three-dimensional world. It is a whole different realm of hyperspace and metaphysics to me.

After many years of illness, I have come to view the fundamentals of life in a different way. While searching for a cure I was inspired by a Zen master in my hometown of Korea. I learned how important it is to live in the present moment. The present, in Eastern culture, is a very short moment when perpetual past and future meet. I realized that I had lingered on ‘the past’, when I was sick, and on’ the future’, when I would be sick. Through practicing meditation I was able to completely concentrate on the moment that I was breathing and to accept ‘suchness’ of the present moment. In my present, when I looked into through meditation, there’s no pain/suffering or tremendous happiness. It is empty but full of vibrating energy just like a subatomic world. True peace and liberation revealed itself in my life in such a way. It was an utterly amazing turning point in my life.

I fold mulberry papers to create geometric creases, and then spray sumi ink repeatedly to create delicate banners of shade. Then I create a site-specific installation responding directly to intersection of the walls or floor. I use the walls or the floor sometimes simultaneously to transform two-dimensional surfaces into three-dimensional space. The viewers’ relativistic location to an artwork will give them different perspectives and also will create slightly different images. From only one viewpoint, by looking at two perpendicular walls together, viewers will be able to recognize one perfect circle. The shapes used in artworks are geometric but conceptually organic, which interact with viewers’ viewpoint. Viewers become participants, not simply observers, by keeping moving and changing their perspectives.

Through my project I want to evoke a new way of looking at the space around us, by challenging our conventional uses of perspective that we’re so dependent on in manmade forms. My work is also a visual questioning of ourselves. An answer sits within each individual in different ways. Only, I hope that my work leads viewers to find their path to their true self beyond physicality.

Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, p.68
At the subatomic level matter does not exist with certainty at definite places, but rather shows ‘tendencies to exist’, and atomic events do not occur with certainty at definite times and in definite ways, but rather shows ‘tendencies to occur’, In the formalism of quantum theory, these tendencies are expressed as probabilities and are associated with mathematical quantities which take the form of waves. This is why particles can be waves at the same time. They are not ‘real’ three-dimensional waves like sound or water waves. They are ‘probability waves’, abstract mathematical quantities with all the characteristic properties of waves which are related to the probabilities of finding the particles at particular points in space and at particular times.

ONE-PERSON EXHIBITIONS

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

New Form and Spirit, Do-ol Gallery, Seoul, Korea
Exchange Show, Seoul University & Tokyo University, Tokyo, Japan

AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES

Selected, Grand Art Competition by Chungang Daily News, Seoul, Korea
Specially Selected, Grand Art Competition by Art World Monthly Magazine, Seoul, Korea
Specially Selected, Grand Art Competition by Munhwa Broadcast Company, Seoul, Korea

PUBLIC TALK

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

RELATED WORK EXPERIENCE

Seongmin Ahn
76 Jackson Street
Brooklyn, NY, 11211

Tel: 646-515-4201

ahnseongmin@hotmail.com