High Touch: Bongchull Shin

Bongchull Shin  is an artist who uses light and glass as his medium of choice to explore his artistic vision. Shin graduated from the Korea National University of Arts and later completed his degree at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Currently, he resides in Germany and works around the world.

The exhibition title "High Touch" suggests a process of re-examining and refining life by exploring its deeply emotional aspects through the lenses of time, religion, philosophy, and art. Shin's intricate compositions, made from glass and light, coupled with a rich spectrum of colors, present new aesthetic possibilities.

Shin's formative years were spent amidst the vibrant changes and natural rhythms of color on his parents' flower farm. Later on, during his sojourn in Europe, he delved into the artistic movements of Expressionism, Constructivism, and Minimalism, which played an integral role in shaping and refining his visual artistry.

Shin is best known for his signature series, Cubes & Stripe, in which he examines the colors used by German Expressionists, applies them to the glass, and projects the light onto the wall to reproduce and reinterpret the originals. His other series, Broken Letters, features broken bottle fragments of quoted poems or songs, colliding symbols and signs of the texts and drawing them into a new context.

Shin's Cubes & Stripe series embodies the fundamental principles of minimal art in a more dynamic and purer form through the interplay of light, color, and space. By drawing inspiration from art history, Shin deftly employs glass as a medium and creates a refined form as he freely experiments with color. The right-angled surfaces of the square and triangular columns, along with the dazzling array of hues, demonstrate Shin's skillful ability to strike a balance between the maximal and the universal, which reflects his perception of the world.

Broken Letters is a series that was born out of Shin's interest in language. Using glass shards to fashion phrases and quotations, Shin creates a tension between form and meaning, imbuing language with fresh meanings and significance. In this series, the message itself serves as the focal point as well as a powerful means of expression. Although the works may appear dangerous with their sharp glass fragments, the organic forms and colors figuratively conjure up images of fresh leaves, lending to an ambivalent aesthetic experience.

“High Touch” by Shin Bongchull will feature representative works from each series, as well as rotating prisms that use motors, and new works from 2023. We invite you to experience a space filled with light and sensory works, which can be perceived and savored with all five senses.

 

+ Shin Bongchull was one of 11 renowned Korean and international artists who participated in Paradise Art Space's first special exhibition, "PRISM FANTASY: New Ways to View Light," in 2019. He is currently participating in a group exhibition, "Scenery of the Emptiness and Asia," as part of ‘ACC Convergence: The Exhibition of Digital Media and Technology’ until August of this year. He has held numerous group and solo exhibitions in countries such as Germany, France, Italy, Denmark, China, and Lebanon, and his works are housed in various collections, including the Munich International Airport and the Alexander Tutsek Foundation.