[material test#2]

MATERIAL TEST SERIES II

2022

Lacquer, Hemp, Wood

Seoul, South Korea

For centuries, lacquer has been associated with perfection.

Its surface is expected to be smooth, immaculate, reflective, and complete. The highest achievement of the material traditionally resides in the disappearance of labour. Every layer conceals the one before it. Every gesture is absorbed into a flawless finish.

Material Test Series II emerged from a desire to challenge this condition.

Rather than pursuing refinement, Tae became interested in disruption.

Rather than concealing process, he sought to reveal it.

The work employs the traditional techniques of baesagi and tohoe, methods through which hemp is adhered to a wooden support before successive mixtures of lacquer and fine earth are applied to strengthen and unify the surface. Historically these techniques function as preparation. They exist in service of the final finish.

Here, however, the process itself becomes the image.

Through experimentation with air, viscosity, temperature, and curing conditions, Tae developed a method of producing subtle ruptures and bubbles within the lacquered surface. What would ordinarily be considered imperfections were allowed to remain. The material began to generate its own topography.

The surface ceased to behave like a painting.

It became terrain.

A field of ridges, depressions, tensions, and accumulations.

Light no longer rested evenly across the work. Instead it travelled through the landscape of the material, revealing shifts in depth and texture that changed according to the viewer's position.

The work therefore marks a significant moment within Tae's research into lacquer.

The material was no longer being used solely as a protective coating.

Nor was it being employed according to historical expectations.

Instead, lacquer became a sculptural medium in its own right.

A substance capable of generating form rather than merely preserving it.

Presented within a frame produced by a master Korean conservator, the work establishes a dialogue between inheritance and experimentation. Traditional knowledge remains present, yet it is directed towards unfamiliar outcomes.

Material Test Series II stands at the threshold between technique and invention.

A moment where tradition ceases to function as instruction and begins to function as possibility.

Copyright © TAEHYUNLEE, All Rights Reserved.