For greater than seventy years, John Pai’s creative observe has delved into themes starting from reminiscence and the unconscious to worldwide artwork kinds, East Asian philosophy, and science. Beginning within the early Nineteen Sixties, he started working with metal, investigating each its technical and aesthetic potential via summary shapes influenced by Constructivism.
Pai is understood for his meticulous and detailed metallic sculptures, which weld skinny strips in lattices and sheets to create delicate woven textures. A fabric we usually affiliate with heavy-duty building is reworked into intimate works that seem as if they might float on air. Comfortable curves and gauzy surfaces recommend natural kinds or textiles in distinction to industrial functions.
Shared Destinies, the artist’s solo exhibition at Gallery Hyundai, presents practically 40 items Pai has made all through the previous seven a long time. Comprising welded metal sculptures, drawings, and work, the present illuminates the artist’s multidisciplinary method to materials, course of, and kind.
Within the work “Shared Destinies,” for instance—which lends the present its title—layers of delicately welded metal recommend a woven basket. Ethereal items like “Invocation” call to mind the undulating, woven wire sculptures of Ruth Asawa. The seen interior constructions mirror the common layers of the human psyche, time, and the artist’s journey of self-exploration.
Shared Destinies continues via October 20 in Seoul. See extra on the gallery’s web site.
collection, 1 to 7 (2024), welded metal, variable dimensions
