LeRoy Neiman Center Lobby | February 23 – March 14, 2015
An exhibition curated by SUGs Directors.
TEA PARTY | Tuesday, March 10, 2015 | 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Floorplan | Press Release
Hungry like the wolf is an exhibition co-curated by the Student Union Galleries Directors, presenting the works of artists Jiayu Liu (BFA 2016), Taehoon Kim (MFA 2015), Michelle Seo (BFA 2015), and Tif Sung (MFA 2015). Childhood tales, innuendo, dog whispering and uninhibited markings are implied throughout the exhibition. Displays of human duality in emotion and experience transform the LeRoy Neiman Center with humor and allegory. Vibrant colors mask the dark underpinnings of the works, reminiscent of the credulous feeling of encountering a wolf in grandmother’s nightgown.
Jiayu Liu’s paintings explore the connection between childhood memories and his emotional state. Painted with a willingness towards informality, they adopt contrasting ideas of innocence and impurity, youthful and mature, the humane and animalistic, to exhibit the very nature of human beings. His paintings are inspired by the innuendo of personality and sex in the Chinese character ‘Xing’. In Play Tuoluo with My Father, the artist combines the perspectives of both child and adult which hinges on the hypothesis that past memories fade away due to the strong presence of a looming dark reality. In his self-portrait, the artist makes playful fun of himself with the title Monkey King in order to challenge the animalistic nature inside human bodies. Resounding throughout his work is the influence of Chinese philosopher San Zi Jing’s statement , “Man at birth is fundamentally good in nature”, the first sentence of the philosophers book Three Character Classic.
Taehoon Kim’s work evokes a place between the subconscious and the evolution of substance. He uses materials that are modified and hybridized, as a metaphor for amorphous communication and the struggle for psychological interaction between humans and animals. His works ask us to consider our origins and how mankind has evolved physically and emotionally. By examining how other species communicate and how to read these communications is apparent only through the understanding of our own conscious, unconscious, and subconscious self. For instance, animal communicators interact with other species by reading their minds or catching invisible cues, while botanists study how plants intelligently use hormones to evolve mechanisms for that sustain life. The crystalline structure of water is receptive to the emotion present within the human voice. His work attempts to reveal and develop a persuasive reflection on the essence of humanity and our relationships with other creatures.
Michelle Seo’s circular structure, that sits atop of three heads, alludes to the large rocks found in Zen gardens. The “rock” protects its interior counterparts, which can be viewed through slits in the work. The vessel’s exterior protects a negative interior space, while also manifesting the existence of an interior volume by “outlining” it through its exterior shape. Exploring these boundaries between outer and inner surfaces speaks to the intersecting relationships between the self, society, and cultural landscapes
Tif Sung’s ceramic sculptures, phallic in structure, allude to Japanese Haniwa tomb sculptures and chinese tomb pillars. Through experimentation with youthful art materials such as wax crayons, lead, and chalk, the surface is inscribed with scrawls, scribbles, playful graffiti-esque marks, images inspired by Chinese landscape paintings, and traces imitative of the consequence of weathering and decay. The forms point towards an intersection between contemporary and historical legacies, optimistically evocative of certain universal and familiar experiences; the need for legible language and translation is absent.
