Hwang Seontae
My Home Is Filled with Light
Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art presents My Home Is Filled with Light, the first Russian show by the South Korean artist Hwang Seontae subtly exploring the nuances of light, shadow, and our contemporaries’ soulscapes
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A virtuoso light and shade artist whose lightboxes were exhibited across Europe, the US, and South Korea
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Minimalist, nearly bare interiors in which artificial sunlight creates the impression of time stood still in quiet anticipation
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Visions of unhurried life evoking a sense of fruitful solitude familiar to anyone who can recall being home alone on a sunny summer day
The depiction of light and shade has always presented a challenge for the artists. It was handled exceptionally well by such Baroque masters as Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Georges de La Tour who adopted the clair-obscur effect as the cornerstone of their painterly practice, infusing the essentially static canvas with dynamism and expressiveness. Their legacy was sustained by the future generations of artists, ensuring continued interest in light as artistic device in its own right.
At first glance, contemporary South Korean artist Hwang Seontae takes an easy approach to light and shade modelling by using the widely available LED lighting. His signature medium is the light box – the ubiquitous lighted panel used in modern-day advertisement. What makes Hwang Seontae’s method unique is that he takes the materials and technology of applied design and transforms them into exceptional visual art objects.
Most of the works showcased in the exhibition share the title Space with Sunlight and feature minimalist interiors devoid of a human presence but animated with light filtering in through the windows. Despite their pointedly contemporary designs, these interiors invariably invoke classical monochrome Korean ink paintings. The artist’s restrained palette and thoughtful treatment of empty space summon a sense of quiet contemplation.
The presence of a dog or a cat further accentuates the prevalent mood of expectation, of waiting for some unknown occurrence associated with the pet owners’ return. These naked rooms can be compared to our contemporaries’ existential soulscapes. The empty home lies in wait, while the light filtering in outlines the psychological drama of a large city dweller: the precarious borderline state between anxiety and calmness in which anticipation turns out to be more important than what is actually happening here and now.
Hwang Seontae was born in 1972 in South Korea. Graduating from the College of Fine Arts, Kyunghee University, South Korea in 1997, Seontae went on to train in Glass Art and Sculpture at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design, Halle, Germany, where he completed his postgraduate studies in 2006. Since 2001, the artist has been exhibiting his works in solo and group shows across South Korea and internationally.
