Sun Jaegal

Statement

My work deals with fleeting emotions of everyday by physicalising them into text and distorted images.

Our daily lives are filled with a series of events and transient emotions. Some make us boil and tear up irrationally. Although they seem perpetual at the moment, they also are almost absurdly easy to fade away. The frustration facing ever-changing moments baffles us and contributes to our anxious mind. We delve for consolation, a certain comfort to ease the distress. The endless hope of capturing the ungraspable and the act of searching for comfort feeds into my working process; capturing, distorting and reconstructing everyday text materials. I write/type/draw them down in an effort to make that evanescent moments concrete and clear. Involving rather repetitive and laborious processes, I consider my work as a meditation seeking solace. It is a similar endeavour of reciting mantra, drawing mandala or transcribing the Bible over and over again.

It was only logical for me to use the language as a primary element since text preserves evanescent vocals and holds down abstract moments on the surface of papers. In addition, coming from the background of graphic design and as a devoted reader of poetries, I’ve always been fascinated by text both for their meanings and forms. With the strong influence of experimental writing such as concrete poetry, cut-up technique and conceptual art, my interaction with text is based on nonlinearity developing into the physical and spatial deployment of text.

The practice of reconstructing text with everyday epiphany is not only chasing the ghostly dream of everlasting moments but also trying to let them go eventually. This ritualic process of seeking Zen creates narrative space with physicalised text – the temporary exhibition space highlighting frustrating and destructive however beautifully ritualic Sisyphean dilemma.

GlogauAIR Project

Using cross-disciplinary methods of physical and digital; combining digital illustration, video and physical installation, my projects are often represented as juxtaposition of parallel scenes mimicking the verso and recto of the codex. During the time in the residency program, I will carry on the physicalisation of the digitally manipulated everyday text. The future project will be on the trajectory of the selected works – The Book, o mar, Ritual of Mechanical Reproduction and Reading Ed Atkins.

CV Summary

EDUCATION

• Royal College of Art : Master of Arts in Visual Communication, 2015
  (Focus: (Reading) Experience: Text Manifestation – Writing Physicality)
• Ewha Womans University, School of Design
  Master of Fine Arts in Visual Communication Design Feb. 2013
  (Focus: Experimental Typography Based On the Meaning of Repetition and Completeness of Circles: Symbolic Circles of Transcendence in Buddhism)
• Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Information Design Aug. 2008

GRANT&AWARD

• Vermont Studio Center : VSC Artist Grant, 2020
• Soki International Illustration & Design Competition, 2009
• Korea Eco Illust Awards, 2009
• Research Assistant Scholarship (Ewha Womans University, School of Design), 2009
• Honor Scholarship(Ewha Womans University, School of Design), 2008
• Honor Scholarship(Ewha Womans University, School of Design), 2007

RESIDENCY

• Vermont Studio Center (Aug-Sep), Vermont, USA, 2020
• ArtsIceland (May-June), Ísafjör›ur, Iceland, 2021
• Fish Factory(April), Stö›varfjör›ur, Iceland, 2021

SOLO SHOWS

• Blurring Waves, Ambiguous Matters, Seoul, Korea, 2018
• Hyperreading Exercise, Seoul, Korea, 2017

GROUP SHOWS

• Line of Death, Berlin, Germany, 2018
• Part-timer’s, Seoul, Korea, 2018
• un_relation, Seoul, Korea, 2017
• Architecture as Material, Berlin, Germany, 2017
• 644 Media Art, Seoul, Korea, 2017
• PASA Festival, Suwon, Korea, 2016
• un_readable, Seoul, Korea, 2016
• Ficciones Typografika, Minneapolis, USA 2016
• Typo Night, Berlin, Germany, 2016
• Show Us Your Type, Berlin, Germany, 2016
• Nontitled Exhibition Match, Bundang, Korea, 2015
• Show RCA, Royal College of Art, London, UK, 2015
• Work In Progress Show, Royal College of Art, London, UK, 2015
• Ficciones Typografika, Minneapolis, USA, 2014
• Wake Up Call, BFI, London, UK 2014
• Unsilent Movie, Samwon Paper Gallery, Seoul, Korea, 2014
• Umit, BL_NK, London, UK, 2014
• RDP Symposium, Royal College of Art, London, UK, 2014
• between July & August, Seoul, Korea, 2013
• Ganji Exhibition, Seoul, Korea, 2011
• Siggraph Asia, Seoul, Korea, 2010
• World Art College Vision Exchange, London, UK, 2010

CURATORIAL WORKS

• un_relation, Seoul, Korea, 2017
• un_readable, Seoul, Korea, 2016
• between July & August, Seoul, Korea, 2013

Gallery