Kim: We had talked about life and art quite a few times before, but I didn’t expect to ask questions back and forth like this. We have tried hard each other to continue this relationship for about 10 years or less. ‘Trying hard’ was more important than I thought. It is amazing that there is a life that drives me forth and also a life driven by me.

An: Such a long time has passed in the meantime. I have been working on my works for over 10 years, but I have just started to know what I have done. I make this collection book as I am hoping to show some parts of my time.

“The landscape was the beginning of an adaptation to an unfamiliar scene”

Kim: I want to ask this question at the beginning since this is the biggest theme of this book. What does mean landscape to Gyungsu An?

An: I thought the landscape for me was the beginning of an adaptation to an unfamiliar scene. Painting a landscape was to face an unfamiliar scene every time, but I always felt a sense of distance from the landscape while I took a long or short journey. I tried to resemble the landscape to narrow the gap while chasing the unfamiliar feeling. The gap was a kind of layer in landscapes, and this was an important element to compose my works as well. I thought that the suburban landscape, which I started to draw 10 years ago, could be the border between the city and the outskirts, or the middle ground between different cities. The plants living in the neglected empty spaces or a stack of garbage were objects on the boundary between a place and a non-place (an anonymous space where nothing happened) that were seperated by layers. The landscapes and objects between these large and small contexts seemed to have their own values of the time in a wide perspective and had their own timeline in an individual meaning as well. My eyes constantly stayed on the boundary or moved to the inner boundary and outer boundary. Landscapes were like that.

Kim: It sounds interesting that the landscape was the beginning of an adaptation to an unfamiliar scene. You said it was unfamiliar, but it should have been very close to Gyungsu An at the same time. You might be saying that you felt the sense of distance and unfamiliarity with the things did not seem to belong to you, such as the boundaries of a city called suburbs that were inevitable to exist. I thought you were referring to this as a sense of unfamiliarity.

An: Yes, I do agree. Like I said, landscapes were always unfamiliar. Even if it was the same place and landscape, the scene was different at all times depending on the weather, time, and memory.

Kim: One more thing to ask you about it. I understand that the layer refers to the conceptual setting of a landscape in a painting. If so, I’d also like to hear how these layers work in a painting.

“A layer, it is a method in which the layers of the landscape are sequentially built up within the painting”

An: Just as the layers built up within a painting are important in works of other artists, the same is true in my works. To summarize at the level of materials, I would like to say that it is a method in which the layers of the analyzed landscape are sequentially built up within the painting. Countless thin layers are piled up to create complete colors, or surfaces are built up to realize the texture of an object. If you look at this long process, you might get an answer to the light and smooth surface of my paintings as you usually curious about. I thought the method of color painting that I learned until graduate school while studying oriental painting was very helpful.

Kim: I definitely don’t want to say that it is a Western painting drawn by Gyungsu An, who majored in oriental painting in his master’s degree. I like to call it just painting. Peple are curious about the inurement of the surface. I guess that ‘the light and smooth surface’ of An’s paintings works as your signature. Could you explain a bit more about the coloring method of oriental painting?

An: Yes. I have studied more diverse fields after graduation apart from my major. However, some of the things I learned in university still have an impact to my painting. Water is the most important material for oriental painting. It adjusts the physical properties of materials and the density of color, and helps to settle the pigments on the screen. When acrylic is mixed with water and mediums to have different viscosity and piles up on a canvas for a very long time, the layers are naturally built up and the paint brushstrokes are erased. Instead, the screen acquires the weight. Since all the layers are stacked thinly, a smooth surface is created at the end.

Kim: Back to the landscape, I wonder why the boundary of the landscape came to you first. I know that landscapes are important to Gyungsu An, but why do the boundaries become very important point to you? To ask you with the broad sense, I wonder why landscape became an issue in this conversation.

“It was an intense experience brought by the paradoxical landscape that existed between my reality and another reality”

An: I still remember. It was around January 2010. I was waiting for a bus at the Seodaemun Post Office, and I saw a construction site across the street. To describe the scene, it was a scene with a large barricade to cover a demolition site with a huge, heavy blue cloth. I was interested in the images on the barricades. It was a painting drawn with natural objects such as trees, mountains, lakes, and rainbows, but it was not well drawn. The barricade made of steel was covering the demolition site, and the blue cloth was covering the piles of debris. However, the people who were passing the street were just moving their own steps beside such painting and reality that were not ordinary. It was an intense experience brought by the paradoxical landscape that existed between my reality and another reality by looking at the barricades and painting in the ruins where the scene was covered by blue cloth. I felt the painting concealed reality. So, on the contrary, I wanted to reveal the concealed scenes among the cities more realistically.

Kim: I thoght those explanations could be the hint about how the layer works in your painting as I asked earlier. I’ve heard of the construction site from you before, and I remember that you explained that feeling as you mentioned now. Do you want such layers like the construction site, the landscape of the barricade, and the people walking in front of the barricade, and Gyungsu An yourself looking at it to be accumulated all together within your painting?

An: Sort of. When I paint something, I don’t want to leave out any single object I see.

Kim: Not leaving out any single object you see. You are so motivated. (Laughter) Now I can understand the layers of painting better. At this point, I want to mention that the sense of visual perception of the layers which seem not to be accumulated in parallel. When looking at the paintings of Gyungsu An, I sometimes feel that they are leaning forward a bit in odd appearances. It feels like it’s going to fall on me after a while. To borrow the example of Photoshop, although it is hardly matched with your, Photoshop’s layers are built sequentially one by one whereas the layers of your painting are subjectively attached together. I’m not so sure if my explanation is proper.

An: “Paintings are leaning forward” is a very interesting expression.

“In my paintings, I always feel like a stranger”

Kim: On the other hand, even though we know the artist’s attempts and efforts to capture places and non-places in a keen eye, we get to know that the scene is our today. Gyungsu An doesn’t seem to tolerate that, and I want to ask ‘what makes An so unbearable?’. I don’t know if I’m overly contemplative, but I do know the effective value of all the senses that come from being sensitive and the concerns of the painter who has to compose them in the screen. So I ask the question over again.

An: In my paintings, I always feel like a stranger. When I stay in one place, I prepare for a journey to go to another place. I think it is because I feel awe and wonder to see such a new landscape. I think what makes me so unbearable comes from that desire. I don’t think painting has a strong influence on certain changes, but the act of ‘drawing’ is the most useful method to approach something. It is the process of self-examination and revealing that it is ‘today’s landscape’. To tell you the truth, how I study for the landscape is the process of finding a consensus with the audience.

Kim: You said that ‘painting’ is far from the influence on any change, but don’t you have a strong distrust of things having the power or influence on changes? You said it is the process of self-examination, but sometimes I recognize your confident attitude. Of course, it does not mean the absurd confidence without any proof, but rather a confidence that can be obtained only by those of whom practiced the painting skill a lot and urged themselves to overcome the state of self-distrust.

An: It’s a little complicated question, but I think the strength of painting lies in the attitude and process of seeing the subject. However, I doubt the power of the painting itself. All art is somewhat political. I think the painting is the same. From the perspective and attitude of the painter, it has to be grasped. The political attitude in art is the matter of seeing the small values, and it is important not to aim for any specific end.

“Landscape painting must shake the place”

Kim: What do you think about the general approach to landscape?

An: It might be difficult to understand If I say that I throw my traces into the landscape without hesitation. When I looked at the process and the result of painting, I often wondered where the essence of painting should lie to make it meaningful. I doubted a lot about the methods of the senior artists, such as ‘bringing landscapes’ and ‘collecting landscapes’. I was uncomfortable with such attitudes because I thought they were too ideological and abstract. I believe painting should shake the place while facing the reality of the landscape. Only with such an attitude I could reach the landscape and form a relationship with it.

Kim: Landscape painting should shake the place. I struggle with this sentence. I can imagine how desperate you are, but you also need the power to focus that much. You sometimes act like a weak old man to deal with painting, but at other times you are extremely motivated. I am a little bit confusing. It may sound awkward, but you seem to push away the uncomfortable feeling by an uncomfortable way. Can I move on to the series of ‘a single painting’ to talk about landscape in more detail?

“A Single Painting”

An: The series of ‘A Single Painting’ was to draw a part of a landscape and overlapped the original landscape and painting with two or more layers. It was a work of merging such two layers like the general flow of time in original landscape and the slow flow of time in painting which was put at the site directly. The same landscapes on the same location had different time line, and it made the sense of unfamiliarity in representation. Through this, I wanted to shake the landscape. On the real landscape, a contradictory landscape (painting) which was drawn with a part of the place was located, and it shook the scene. Finally, a single landscape was created with reality and representation. Through this process, I thought that the landscape painting should be part of the site. At the end, the painting in front of me turned out to be another layer in the landscape.

Kim: While you mentioned that landscape painting should be part of the site, it just caught my ears. Even though I understand your landscape with many layers, I am surprised by your decision to make it ‘a single painting’. In fact, ‘a single painting’ sounds awkward. I think you have a desire to capture an impossible moment, and you describe these attempts by such words like shake and incompleteness. Even though I understand the layers of the world, I always wonder how to implement them within painting. When Gyungsu An talks about ‘a single painting’, I know the final result by looking at the final painting. However, I wonder what path ways are chosen and omitted during the process.

An: Going through this process several times, I have realized that this was an important method for me to have relationship with the landscape. I looked at places that was once a landscapes or empty spaces left behind after a certain place has disappeared. These meant a lot in a social context. However, as a painter, I didn’t want to mention the social context of such a place more than necessary. The incompleteness of the place decided which landscape to shake and focus, and such places were where I could enter. Also, it was not that difficult to enter such an empty space.

“An empty space, an isolated objet”

Kim: I think easy access to the empty space does not just mean the physical convenience to enter. Why? Being attracted to an empty space and entering an empty space are different matter, I guess.

An: That’s right. No matter where I go, I’ve never thought I was uncomfortable with the physical difficulty. However, I wouldn’t visit the place without motivation and interest to see the place. The anonymity of the empty space was often the main subject of many paintings. Rather than just being empty, I thought there were more dense textures beyond of the appearance. Unlike general places that had a normal timeline, these places seemed to have a relatively unbalanced and irregular passage of time. Moreover, the large and small objects found in the place evoked variety of senses. What I discovered was that the values and tendencies of things were in an unstable situation. The objects became nameless and ruleless objets in the moment they entered an empty space and became abandoned and self-sustaining. The abandoned objects grew and existed as independent objets on their own, because they existed in the huge layer called a place of an empty space.

Kim: I also think like that as well, but I worry if I am too arrogant. I doubt that if I could judge the world at my will and interpreting the world arbitrarilly.

An: I am always careful about that point as well. The reason that I became obsessed with the empty space was that it had a texture while it was empty, and it also showed the unique ideology of landscape. Objets that were repeatedly blurred by anonymity or unstable value had a certain sort of desperate feeling unlike other landscapes or objets in other places. What I want to say is that it showed the urgency of existence. So, I might have been drawing those landscapes desperately and earnestly like them. I mean the scenes with such bleak and shabby landscapes. It was a landscape that was not beautiful at all, but at least it moved my heart. I painted landscapes, but I don’t think I followed the things with stale aesthetical existence. I just followed the landscape that moved myself. it’s because I felt the aesthetic value when facing the landscape which moved me.

Kim: You said about an objet, but the moment you say it, I think it reveals the feeling of alienation. However, rather than the eternal alienation and disappoinment at the isolated feeling, I think you are empathizing with the ‘desperation’ to reverse the feeling. You said that the landscape is not beautiful at all, but your painting possesses certain beauty as a painting. Do you think the beauty of painting is not subordinated to the beauty of the objects?

An: Definitely. However, I believe that a certain sense of beauty can also exist on the isolated things. That’s why the isolated objets have a very unique presence. Interesting, isn’t it? I believe that painting is not subordinated to the objects, and I am proud of that.

Kim: I am not skeptical of Gyungsu An, and even though I know how your determination works in such range and direction, I raise a question about your hesitation all the time. What do you try not to chase a stereotypical aesthetic existnece?

“Ideological landscape”

An: A place is defined by a certain ideological landscape(scene). I think every landscape has its own ideological attitude. Looking at this attitude, it has become very important work process for me to learn the attitude of the landscape. Based on that attitude, I have repeatedly moved from place to place, and the place I have settled down has provided great motivation for my work. It is because the landscape painting is a matter of the way of seeing. I gradually began to take an interest in the places of ruin. When a certain place is ruined by a disaster or an incident, such a question, how do we deal with the landscape after its value has collapsed, became important.

Kim: You often talked about your plans for future works. As we have frequent conversations, I have seen your works that reflect your own ‘stance’ on disasters and incidents even though it is not shown directly. To take such themes, there must be a point to consider as a painting method, right?

An: Always. I have different stories while looking at different landscapes every moment, and based on that, I paint several series of works at the same time. One of them is a landscape about the disasters and incidents you mentioned, but I still need more time. I don’t want to repeat works with past method and themes, so I need to keep up with studying more and more. And I like to tell the people around me about my future plan. I like to hear opinions about it, and at the same time it strengthens my will to keep working.

Kim: One or two years ago, you showed me the image of a disaster that you wanted to draw. The representation of the disaster was definitely not what Gyungsu An wanted to talk about as I have known your usual attitude, and then I was curious about your desire to make the scenes of the disaster valid for us, which was collected in parts from a distance.

An: I need to study more, but I think disaster painting is probably a work that will be done in the distant future. Sometimes, I am worried if the peek of the landscape eventually goes to that place. I thought like that while watching Anselm Kiefer’s work. I have always thought that painting is the most effective medium for conveying a sense of symptom, and when imagining scenes such as disasters and landscapes after an incident, Kiefer’s paintings often come to my mind. It’s hard to feel in other works such a strong sense as Kiefer’s surface has. I sometimes think that I want to create such a work later.

“Time of painting”

Kim: I want to talk about your work in the late 2010s. Unfortunately, I was not happy with your solo exhibition 《A Loud Night》 in 2019. At that time, I didn’t like the fact that Gyungsu An was very good at drawing. You were too skilled, and I wanted to inturrupt your way where you drove yourself to be even more skillful. Oh, no! Even the light was drawn. I felt that way. It was because painting was already extremely visual to take an advantage of auditory senses. To me, 《A Loud Night》was, in a sense, a kind of failure at the time, or the heighest reach of aestheticism. I really didn’t want you to go to that way and this sort of mind led me to the dissatisfaction. But now, I think about your choices more and more. Some thoughts came to me late after the exhibition: Gyungsu An might have wanted to see the end as a painter, he might have been trying to break through rather than avoiding obstacles, and he might have been completing his tasks without hesitating. Perhaps if I were to visit the exhibition again, I would have seen the exhibition in a different way. Dissatisfaction I felt was because I had an affection for An, and I still have an affection.

An: I know. I feel you have an affection for me. Thank you so much. I cannot deny that I am a type of person craving for beauty, but it sounds interesting that you felt the extreme aestheticism or a kind of failure. I don’t think I am good at drawing. Rather, I repeatedly make mistakes every moment. While I continued to paint landscapes in the suburbs in 2018, I thought that different perspective was necessary. To be precise, I chose the change of time rather than different view. I focused on the night time to see and experience the scenery. In other words, I was curious about how the scenery I saw at night was different.

Kim: I could find the sign of the night in your painting even before that. The solo exhibition in 2015 captured the subtle inflection points of day and night.

An: As I remember, even before that, I went back and forth of day and night. Naturally, as I experienced various times of landscapes, inflection points came out among different time periods. However, from the time I prepared for《A Loud Night》 in 2019, I began to be interested in the emotions of the night more than before. The nightscape, which I had kept working a little before, gradually led to my main interest. This series was created with the auditory sense of ‘loudness’ that was ironically added to the visual image of ‘night’, and the title was to show the tension between those contradictory terms. In particular, I tried to capture the dim but clear light at the time of the transition from daytime to nighttime. I thought that the ambiguity of light in such an empty space or ruins was the element that brought about the strange unfamiliarity. Other than sunset, artificial light was also brought into the landscape to create a strong contrast between light and darkness, and I experienced a dramatic scene that was both intimate as well as unfamiliar. The object’s presence was more emphasized at night, so it was a time to experience the most unfamiliar scene of outskirts. My eyes, which had been restlessly floating, followed the depth more heavily, and I made many layers on the screen more firmly with the brushstrokes. The surface of the acrylic paint, which was painted with many layers, was so thin and smooth that it was hard to detect. The light and illumination that squeezed in the time of ‘night’ revealed things ‘loudly’, but this seemed to give an absurd sensation as if the sound was muted in a scene from a dramatic movie. At this time, I went beyond the landscape and the surface of objects to experience the invisible things beyond of them, and I thought about the time of objects. Compare to the last works, I made the scenes more unfamiliar.

Kim: I’d like to hear more about what 'depth' means in the phrase that your eyes followed the depth. I think the depth of reality, the depth of senses, and the depth of painting must be mixed.

An: As you already said, all three elements were included. I thought depth of night showed the landscape three-dimensionally. From about 10 years ago, I had a fear when I went for a walk at night. The invisible things in darkness were the biggest fear, and the sense of physical distance seemed farther away than during the day. It felt like the space was growing larger. I was very excited to paint such an incomplete layer. It was very difficult to express the night in paintings. Much more layers of colors were used to reveal the night than to express the texture of the day time. I felt inexpressible joy when I slowly saw objects that were faintly revealed in the dark on the canvas.

Kim: Recently, we met at the place where we searched the scene of Daehakro to prepare for the exhibition next year, and it was interesting to see your choice of the time. It wasn’t night yet, but you said that was just right time. I didn’t have a chance to ask what ‘the right time’ was when you said that.

An: I would say that when the scenes are clearly visible. To accurately speak, it is the time when the texture of the place is well revealed rather than the physical appearance is well shown.

“Another choice to draw in nature, a heap”

Kim: Can we talk about your recent work, a heap? These works were presented at A Lounge. At that time, I thought that Gyungsu An was trying to draw in a way that he did not try before. You made a form by scratching the surface, not like adding the layers on it. It was a kind of negative film, I guess.

An: Yes. At that time, I used oil painting to actively express the texture of the subject with a brush. Since I was drawing outside for a short time, there were many sweeping and shedding parts that were different from the way I drew before. I expressed the characteristics of pigment more prominently by giving more diverse brush strokes. There were many variables and experiences because it was seen and drawn in the field directly. So, I had to find the proper method everytime.

Kim: I thought the heap meant landscapes and objects, or more specifically, objets that do not completely united but exist in a lumpy form. Also, the expression, the huge grave shapes, catched my eyes. In the exhibition 《Phantasmagoria》in 2021, it wasn’t accurately characterized as a landscape, but I thought it was like a kind of urn as it depicted the objects appearing in the movie (directed by Bela Tarr, 2011). I am not so sure if it is proper to connect the grave and death right away, but I wonder if the atmosphere that hasn’t been revealed in the meantime has risen to the surface.

An: There is a clear connection between the series of ‘the heap’ and the works of 《Phantasmagoria》. These works were relic-like landscapes related to food, clothing and shelter in human life. I felt like that. The heap was a slightly different story but definitely in a similar concept. The heaps were certain shapes that happened to gather in the suburbs. For example, there were junk cars, graves, the piles of garbage, overgrown vine runners, and things like wooden boxes. These innumerable heaps were densely packed as if swept to the outskirts. It could be called the society of heaps, where landscapes were swept from the center to the edges. The studio I’m using now was previously used as a waste warehouse. When I first entered this studio after signing a contract, there were heaps of waste piled up in the front yard, and it looked like a huge grave. However, it is not much different from then and now. I work here in a heap. Paintings become heaps again, and my heaps are piled up again and again. The state of painting was unsettled, standing on the fringe of an ambiguous value that might or might not be waste.

Kim: I get a hint from the fact that the studio was previously used as a waste warehouse. Can you explain more about the heap?

An: This work was basically extended from ‘a single painting’. For this work, I drew them in a heap for 14 days. Some large and small lumps around were drawn, and so to say, I wanted the heap and my painting to be on the same line. It took two to three hours to paint them outdoors, but the next day after the painting dried up a little bit, I brought the painting back to the place again. And I put the painting on the site and recorded the overlapping scene of the landscape and the painting in a video. However, it was impossible to completely overlap the original landscape and painting. Painting was always an unfamiliar subject in the real landscape. Nonetheless, I approached the landscape with such a method. At the place where a balance had not been made yet, the painting itself became a layer within the landscape, and my intention was to make a precarious attempt to find a balance between the landscape and the painting, and between the landscape and myself. As I said before, I thought painting was about building another layer within a landscape. At the same time, the painting was always related to the real landscape and shook the place, while revealing the unsettled state. I thought that was an important value of painting.

***

Our conversation repeated several times of asking, answering, and revising. In 2015, I closed the text with “if I complete the question, wouldn’t it be a painting?”, and at this time, this conversation became the question following after the painting. Regarding the recent work, another text (written by Sungwoo Kim) is coming forth. So I look forward to it and hope that the insufficient part of this conversation will be mended. I am hesitating with the whole text of our conversation. Did we really have a friendly conversation for the reader? I reviewed dozens of times to think of a better way, and rearranged the order of the questions and answers from the first draft. There were some changes of orders in the conversation, but nothing much was changed. There were also some concepts and terms that operated only in Gyungsu An’s paintings beyond general usage. I have failed to keep the objectivity since I have known him for a long time to see, feel, and read his works. Instead, I suggested heading titles by the words of Gyungsu An or inserted key concepts in between for those who would follow the conversation. Looking back, our conversations for a long time were always scattered and fragmented like this. Misunderstanding sometimes turned out to be understanding later. Not just this conversation, but everyday life is not very different. It’s embarrassing because this insufficient state is the most honest part of us. I’m just waiting for those who regard this text as the bare skin of an artist and curator’s life in the burst of energy. For the rest, I hope that Gyungsu An’s paintings that filling the entire book and the critiques could be like stepping stones to understand the past ten years of him to prove his real worth.

Hyunju Kim