ART CITIES:N.York-Ran Hwang
Ran Hwang is best-known for creating intricate, large-scale Installations, part mural, part sculpture. Although some of her works may look simple from a distance, a closer inspection shows the extreme level of detail in her work. The Korean-born artist uses thousands of pins, beads and buttons to create intricate images of vessels, birds, and even people.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Leila Heller Gallery Archive
Ran Hwang’s solo exhibition “Sacred Space” is on presentation at Leila Heller Gallery in New York. Although Hwang in her work refers to her Korean heritage in her artistic practice, she is also very much influenced by her time living in the United States. Born in Busan, she started as a realist painter of landscapes and still lifes. In 1997, she moved to New York to develop her own style, but after studying at the School of Visual Arts, she took a job designing embroidery in the fashion industry. Hwang experienced a major shift in perspective on society and her art after witnessed people jump from the twin towers on 9/11. Realizing that the multitude of numberless people are what make up mass society she left fashion to make art that would impart meaning about ephemerality and eternity as well as convey a sense of spirituality. “I grew up in a Buddhist family, I mix fashion images and Buddhist philosophy. Eastern style and Western style come together, and I make something new”. Zen Buddhism also plays a major role in Hwang’s work. The artistic process itself is highly meditative, as Hwang projects an image on a wall or other surface, traces the outline, and then she begins filling it in with thousands of colorful buttons and beads that are attached to long pins. “The process of building large installations are time consuming and repetitive and it requires manual effort which provides a form of self-meditation” she explains in her artist statement. At the outer edges of the image, sometimes Hwang disperses the pins, making it look as if the image were coming apart. Hwang’s motifs of intricate blossoms and Buddha’s stem from her fascination with Zen Buddhism. Buddhism is integral to Hwang’s creative process and labor-intensive execution. To construct much of her work, Hwang creates paper buttons by hand, hammering each one approximately twenty-five times until it is secure.
Info: Leila Heller Gallery, 568 West 25th Street, New York, Duration: 9/11-24/12/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.leilahellergallery.com
