A Thought on Wire Fences

The clouds in the sky are storages of memory and emotions, knowledge and imagination for Kang Un. From Night (2019) is an attempt to show that the memory of a day from his military service is not his alone, but another being, the sky, remembers that day also. The sky in the DMZ in 1986 that he saw while in service doesn’t look so different from that of today. Perhaps the sky remains the same until now. Yet the sky of the past has gone through changes up to now. Through From Night, the artist depicts how our minds have also had changes in our awareness like the tiny yet ceaseless movements of nature. The barbed-wire fence that he had faced while in military service, dazed from the propaganda broadcasts, was beyond a physical border a transcendental and mental wall, a representation of it. The fence he faces after 30 years are no longer an adamant wall or a scar but just a rusted representation of time past. A Thought on Wire Fences (2019) is a work of painting that portrays the vast, stunning wire fences extending through the beautiful mountains of Goseong, that remain as profound afterimages. It is a work dedicated to youth, both of the past and future.