Today’s Culturati interviewee is the artist Joseph Baek!

Q1. Nice to meet you! Please introduce yourself and explain your work.

Hello! I am Joseph Baek. I do painting, installation art, and image work. I am continuously experimenting with my artwork in two main directions. The first is pictorial. This started with two questions, “What should I draw and how should I draw it?” and “excluding the notion that what is seen is an important issue.” From 2010 to early 2015, I drew one-dimensional figurative paintings focusing on the technique that reproduces the object, but I pondered a lot about what to draw and how to draw it and then started to look into myself during the second half of 2015. I realized the importance of daily life through this process and adopted a new method of working, which completely changed my attitude toward creation. I started experiencing three to four dimensions, seeing the scenery of nature, feeling the variation of time detected by speed, contemplating while reading books, and feeling emotions that recalled my childhood. Moreover, I have seen evidence that pictorial meanings form an inner formative language through experiences of certain events or phenomena.

Second, based on my pictorial experiment, I am working on a project focusing on what we see in our daily lives in Daejeon, and the original downtown, in particular. I am trying to establish a new way of understanding and sharing the characteristics of each region by weaving the experiences and perspectives of residents with the perspectives of others. Recently, I am working on my artwork considering themes such as the story of the doughnut pattern, redevelopment, sprawling development, immigration issues, and residential systems. My experiments that continue in two directions can find the solution to the questions I mentioned first, and this can open up the possibility of constructing a formative language at the same time. These are the driving forces making me continue my creative work.

Q2. What made you decide to do this job?

There is no special reason. I naturally became interested in the arts when I was young because of the influence of my parents who were interested in literature and art. When I was a child, my grandfather worked on building a house. I observed him carefully, so I grew up having a great interest in making or designing things, which was the basis for my current job.

Q3. I heard that you use repeating, scratching, and covering processes. I wonder why you chose these methods and what you want to express through this.

What is your earliest memory?

Memories of when I was around five years old often come to mind. These could be memories of enjoying candies or of playing on the swings with my father. However, some people might remember when they were younger than 5 years old or even when they were newborn babies. In some cases, memories after the age of 10 maybe some people’s earliest memories due to an accident. There is one fallacy in all of this. Memories can overlap time, being part of the past, present, and future. I express the existence of memories over time using a pictorial method through several experiments.

The Overlapping of Memories

 "And once I had recognized the taste of the crumb of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-flowers which my aunt used to give me... immediately the old gray house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like the scenery of a theater.” - Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time.

The scene in which the protagonist reminisces about the past in the famous novel In Search of Lost Time is well known for revisiting the meaning of memory. This passage clearly indicates the kind of experiments I pursue. I think the expression of the moment the main character tastes the crumb of madeleine soaked in tea and the childhood memories of his aunt's house come upon him like whirlwind resonates with my artwork. Not just old memories rekindled through overlapping expressions but memories evoked from fragments of sensory memories linked to each other coming together. I always study and try to achieve this. This process of association is similar to my usual way of working.

Visual Study of Pigments and Light

Realistic situations experienced every day are remembered and visualized the moment you draw, becoming an image and a real existence. I have abstracted the memory experience since Palimpsest. I think that each work subtly creates different colors and textures by repeating the process of overlapping and erasing the senses felt. Thus, my goal is to enable people to recall memories through my works, just as the protagonist’s memories in Proust’s novel are evoked by a cup of tea.

Q4. Is there a work or exhibition that you remember the most?

Impressions from the exhibition Minimalism-Maximalism-Mechanism Acts 3 to 4 at the Art Sonje Center still linger in my mind. I was shocked and impressed by the intention of the planner and the method of expression representing various dimensions.

Q5. I know that you have quite a few works on memory and time. I wonder if there is any motivation for dealing with these topics.

“The present progresses based on the accumulated past.”

The time we live in now belongs to the present, but I think it is numerous past experiences and memories that have created who we are today. Many people have become accustomed to easily recording, showcasing, and communicating parts of their lives in a virtual space thanks to the development of various social media. I, however, have excluded the idea that what is seen is an important issue. Instead, I present how our experiences and memories are accumulated and how we look into ourselves and figure out what is behind us in an experimental way through light, pigment, dots, lines, and faces. I experimented from 2015 to 2016. I recorded daily memories on paper every day, and covered the paper with pigment, scraped it off, wiped it off, and covered them again and again. This is the foundation of my current way of painting, which traces the accumulated past.

Q6. I heard that you were selected for the exhibition Next Code 2022 that will be held in November. I would like to know what it means for you to participate in the exhibition.

“Next Code” is a support program for artists under the age of 39 hosted by the Daejeon Museum of Art. The program has been running for twenty years. Every year, about five artists are selected. It is a great opportunity for artists in Daejeon. I am very pleased to be selected this year. I think this will be a catalyst for my future that can help my works materialize.

Q7. Is there anything you want to tell the students who will appreciate your exhibition for the first time?

Even if you do not think of something great, it is enough for you to simply recall the moments and emotions that you have felt in your life through my exhibition.

Q8. Please explain to me the most difficult part of planning and embodying work.

There are many difficulties in the process. In terms of the physical side, I consistently contemplate how to organize my exhibitions and what colors to use to create the overall atmosphere. In terms of content, questions about where and how my exhibition or work is intended to be seen and how it will be communicated are asked all the time. These are the difficult parts of giving shape to an idea, but they are also the driving force to keep going.

Q9. What advice would you give to students who want to become artists like you?

In a conversation with a curator last year, I remember someone saying, “Holding the line is the only way to live.” We promised each other to continue curating and working for a long time. It is a simple sentence, but I think there is a clear answer in there.