Hejum Bä has been continuously attempting to capture motional and mobile forms onto a suspended picture-screen. It is a paradoxical attempt to visualize the fundamental dilemma of painting through painting. Bä’s paintings do not aim to resemble the appearance of an object; but intend to materialize the movement of thought that gives shape to the image of the object in the mind. The painting that reveals the progress of the contemplation manifests on the picture-screen through the movement of the body. Bä assumes that the conflict or harmony between the structurally united color planes on the picture-screen is able to create movement, unique to painting. The color planes of the moment of motion and the vibration of the brushstroke endeavoring to capture the impossible enable the viewer to assume the scene beyond what the artist is portraying. By placing hints for the movement that is bound to occur, the works have the effect of inducing the progress of contemplation.

It is worth noticing that she started to abstract her subjects in her recent works, compared to her early works that took the form of specific organisms. Bä has been continuously contemplating about the structure and aspect of integration of the elements that constitutes the non-figurative picture-screen. In Clavier (2018), a recent work presented in this exhibition, the artist expresses the structural motions of musical notes played on the keyboard. The musical notes as the minimal unit temporarily loses their individuality when played as music, but obtain a new identity as the element that materializes the music as a whole. In the same context, the color planes in Clavier (2018) seem to be merging with the overall movement of the curves lingering on the picture-screen, deviating from the individual imagery from Bä’s earlier works. The fact that the subject is abstracted yet the composition of the picture-screen has become more well-structured is noticeable.

Hejum Bä was born in Seoul, 1987. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Painting and Printmaking from Ewha Womans University in 2010, and graduated from Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design with a diploma in Drawing and Painting in 2015. A year later, in 2016, she participated in the Practice-based Research Program at the Bauhaus University Weimar, Germany. She has held solo exhibitions at institutions such as OCI Museum of Art (Seoul), Project Space SARUBIA (Seoul), Sophie’s Tree (New York), etc. She also participated in group exhibitions at institutions such as Queens Museum (New York), HITE Collection (Seoul), Platfrom-L Contemporary Art Center (Seoul), Kunstverein Feuerbach (Stuttgart, Germany), etc. She is currently living and working in Seoul.