Lines of uniform spacing and color fill the canvas. They take on a hard, cold metallic quality. Yet as time and gesture accumulate repeatedly on the surface, the subject transforms from fixed matter into a "moving sensation." The moment the simple act of drawing a line expands into layers of time on the canvas, painting offers an experience of the infinite universe.
"Metallic Wings," a solo exhibition by artist Ji Keun-Wook, 41, who creates works from countless lines on the canvas, is underway at Hakgojae Gallery in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Featuring 59 of Ji's paintings, the exhibition showcases representative works by an artist who, through the acts of line drawing and accumulating material, moves beyond the representational dimension of "what is shown" to focus on the essential mode of existence — "how it is revealed."
The artist has repeatedly drawn geometric patterns within thoroughly calculated rules. It is not a mechanical act but actual labor involving the hand. The lines are drawn in the same way, yet no two lines are ever identical. "I prepare the canvas with a base layer, create a gradation using a UV printer, and then fill the canvas with repetitive line drawing using a ruler and colored pencils," he explained. "For the base layer, I used stainless steel pigment to create a metallic feel."
The works on display belong to the "Space Engine" series. The centerpiece is "metallic field," a work composed of 24 paintings in total. The piece is constructed by placing two squares of the same size vertically, then connecting 12 such pairs horizontally. Each painting consists of nested square structures that gradually narrow inward, with each surface densely filled with straight lines.
The lines maintain consistent spacing and direction while carrying subtly different colors and densities, so that up close, the repetition of the hand and the passage of time can be felt intact. Outwardly, the composition appears confined within rigid square frames, but the artist instead uses those very frames to invert the concept of a "closed universe."
In "metallic paths," a work composed of five paintings, diagonal lines fill the canvas while a white arc rising toward the upper right extends across them. It evokes the view of the round Earth seen from outer space.
"Metal," the central material of this exhibition, is a crystallization of time that condenses the past. Through its fluid surface, it lifts multi-layered time and space — beyond a singular present — onto the canvas. Metal functions as the key device that imparts optical variation to the paintings. It continuously alters the surface's impression depending on the angle of light, generating different depths and layers according to the viewer's position and angle.
"Wing," meanwhile, symbolizes such transformation. It carries the directionality of a movement seeking to escape the limits of gravity and matter. It is a metaphor for the process by which solid metallic matter gradually transitions, through persistent repetition, into the immaterial realm of spirituality — the trajectory by which consciousness, beginning from matter, ascends once again into an immaterial state.
"I tried to express an image of the soul ascending," the artist said. "I hope viewers can feel in the works a sensation in which there is no distinction between past, present, and future, and no beginning or end."
Ji Keun-Wook graduated from the Printmaking Department at Hongik University and earned a master's degree in Art & Science from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. He returned to Hongik University to earn a doctorate in painting. He has held solo exhibitions at venues including Sungkok Art Museum and Schema Art Museum, and was selected for the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture's Emerging Artist Track creative support program in 2021. He currently serves as a professor in the Painting Department at Sookmyung Women's University. The exhibition runs through May 9.
