Painting does not always have a physicality. Depending on what medium the artist uses, the painting might have the materiality or might lose the materiality.

For example, if an artist uses oil or acrylic paint, the work of painting does not lose the materiality. The movement of artist leaves brushmark on canvas which is permanent. At the same time, the movement of the artist leaves the idea on the canvas. The footage of the hand movement delivers the idea to the viewer. When an artist puts de-material medium such as air, evaporating water, sound, and light, on the canvas, the painting loses the materiality. The gesture of the artist would not leave any footage on the canvas, however, the gesture still leaves the idea on the canvas.

“Light on Canvas” is a painting that I created in 2017 at the Alexander Studio of Simon Fraser University. I grabbed sunlight from the window area where sunlight enters, and I placed the sunlight to the exhibition space where we call, Bartlette. I placed six circle mirrors at a certain point where they create the path for the sunlight. 

The light on canvas does not have materiality, and the audience could see the light only in the limited time period. It disappears after a certain time.

What the audience observe from the white canvas is light. Is the light an art object? or is this just a natural phenomenon? What people see is not actually a physicality of the object. What people actually see is a reflected light of a physical object. From this work of art, I am questioning about the boundary between materiality and de-materiality. What you see as a material object is truly a de-materialized light that is reflected from the material object.

It is a work of drawing which is inspired by personal doodling.

I was thinking about the unconsciousness as an element of the dematerialization in art. Doodling is a work that I unconsciously drew while I was taking an academic lecture. The concept of unconsciousness makes my doodling idealess because I do not  express any idea through the movement of a hand. Considering the doodling as an idealess artwork, I decided to re-create the doodling on a piece of a white paper. By re-drawing the doodling, I am creating an artwork that is created from my unconsciousness. The unconsciousness becomes an artistic idea of this artwork. At the same time, I spent a lot of time filling a white piece of paper by doodling. After hours and hours of drawing, I finally reached the point when I finally find myself uncousciously drawing the doodling. It was almost ritualistic gesture that I repeatedly use my hand to leave pen-marks. The primary idea of the artwork is uncousciousness, and I was unconsciously creating an artwork.

While I was painting the traditional portrait of Antoinette, I also painted three conceptual portraits of Antoinette. It was also parts of the summer Antoinette project which I spent three months to finish. The reference of portrait images are the portrait sculptures of Antoinette. I chose three plaster sculptures of Antoinette.

The surface of the plaster gives a feeling of coldness because of the absence of color. It naturally provides a monochromic sense without any photoshop effect, and it is different from a black and white photograph.

Here are the conceptual images of the painting before I start.

I used oil painting in this work, but I also added one more material, sand. I chose sand because it creates a relationship with a plaster. Although plaster and sand are different materials, I found common sense from two material, and I decided to use sand.  I painted the background with sand. To create a sandy painting, I mixed sand with gel medium. The gel medium is a clear acrylic substance that is sometimes mixed with acrylic paint to express a thickness or a different texture. The half of the canvas is painted with a red oil painting, and it provides a modernistic expression.

Unlike the traditional portrait that I painted, I covered the eyes with colors. Antoinette, a French Queen, is a symbol of extravagance who is famous for saying “If the people have no bread, let them eat cake”. The covered eyes symbolized a different perspective of the Queen. The queen looks through colored glasses. The painting talks about prejudice.

I carefully chose which color has a better harmony with the painting in terms of a color balance

.

The summer Antoinette project was definitely pleasing, and I thanksfully enjoyed 3 months project period. The beautiful memories remained along with the paintings.