Lee Yong Deok artist’s writing
2011

Reflections on the Silhouette

My interest in the silhouette image originated from the experimental works that I was making in the middle of the 1980s. It was a sculpture of a human figure composed partially of the negative and partially of the positive, as in the work A Woman (1984) in which the upper body is engraved and the lower body is embossed. It still made a normal human body and it felt as much. Whether it protruded or receded, the effect that it delivered turned out to be almost the same. More experiments ensued in Germany with my works Nina’s Shadow (1993), Pillar of Doubt (1993) and Mirroring (1994)


Such experiments drew my attention to the flat surface, which is the criterion used for judgement. Conversely, figuring out whether it was projection or recession depended upon where it was positioned in terms of the flat surface. It is then possible to draw a parallel between the flat plane and the number zero. Zero is positioned at neither backwards nor forwards; it is devoid of direction. I looked for something that has no direction, or something that maybe contains both directions at all. I had the serendipity of finding the silhouette, and started working on the motif of the silhouette.

The silhouette image retains traces of the objects and memories of their having existed; the silhouette is, at the simplest, akin to the substance of representation. As a sculptor, what I was more concerned about was that the silhouette image posed as the perceptual confirmation of a being on the two-dimensional surface; it is a being that is transferred from the three-dimensional by means of the interplay of light and darkness. In other words, I felt that what initially occupied space attenuated to its least possible dimension; the mass was transformed into zero-accretion, so to speak, while still possessing a notion of the image of the original object. It can be said that the object no longer exists on one mode, and at the same time it still does exist on the other.

Would it be then possible to think of the silhouetted realm as the vintage-post where one can be aware of two different forms of existence? I am reminded of a time when I was much younger – that I was fascinated with a shoe-bag. You could flip it inside out, and yet, it was still usable and the same. Positive to negative. I come back to my childhood wonderings in my artist days, and wonder about such co-existences. So, on the strength of such query, I proceeded to conceive the formulation which could show a playful analysis of the potential of the silhouette image. In 2000, Confrontation-Encounter, Aphasia-Reflex, Shedding and The Absence were on view at the solo show, “Both Sides of Existence” at the Moran Museum of Art in Korea, and they were related to such reading on the motif of the silhouette. I believe that those works were made with the resonance of the very concept which later on was ensconced and recapitulated in the form of the inverted sculpture.

Confrontation-Encounter (2000)

The works, Confrontation-Encounter, are constituted by two pieces of works: they are a pair. The silhouette was in the form of a void in one of the works, whereas the other silhouette in the other work was of mass. And one can see that one is extracted from the other. In other words, one can imagine to piece the two works together and see how the two works could slot perfectly into one another. These two existences of works are, indeed, one – and they were meant to be one. We are not sure where the actual man and woman are, but what the observers are certain of is the fact that these silhouettes are inverted from each other; they complement each other. The symbiotic nature of Confrontation-Encounter is double layered upon the observer’s mind by the fact that the two split images of the silhouette – one in positive and the other in negative – have been taken from the initial block.

Moving on, let me consider the surprising, rather mystical effect, which most of us are vulnerable to. In this case, firstly, two separate silhouette images of a man and a woman are stretched backwards to one at the other side. One comes to wonder, which is the silhouette of which? It is not wrong to say that one encounters the silhouette’s actual entity, pushing beyond the boundary of the silhouette! It is surprising how both become silhouettes, despite the fact that one work is the negative of the other. Now turning to the other visual consequence which our vision falls prey to; we can see that two hollow orifices become one. Especially when one gazes at another silhouetted outline through the silhouette at the far end of the darkish tunnel sided on the piled-up MDF sheets, it feels strange and eerie.





All these unexpected discoveries are, I dare say, what viewers can find upon perambulating the vintage-post of the silhouette realm. They are the protean transformations on the different ways things exist and how their existence is perceived, all of which are something I got tapping with my ambulating queries. Confrontation-Encounter is the visual articulation of my own search on the different forms of existence, and says something of my own intuitive belief on the dialectic relation between the positive and the negative.

Aphasia-Reflex (2000)

The second work, Aphasia-Reflex can be considered as a different version of Confrontation-Encounter. There standing before the viewer are the mirror and the slide projection in the place of stacked MDF sheets. I might even call the pair – Confrontation-Encounter and Aphasia-Reflex – as fraternal twins. Aphasia-Reflex is a very simple set up, and the viewer might find comfort and a sense of satisfaction as he figures out how the artwork has been put together. There is a thin, materialistic representation of the silhouette in front – and using the light from the projector, we see the silhouettes of the silhouette. One of them projects upon the screen (of changing background pictures), scarred and marred, whereas the other projects into the corner between the screen and the mirror – allowing the mirror to complete the silhouette. There are two silhouettes projected onto the walls, but they come from a single source: the one near the mirror is a silhouette of darkness, and the other is a silhouette of brightness.



The clever mirror aided by the slide projection took over the job that the MDF panels did in the work, Confrontation-Encounter, and this lets the viewer experience in a split moment the process in which images have been doubly reflected, that is, on the wall and then on the mirror. Using a mirror and the projector might lend the work a modish coating, and yet as far as I am concerned the two works are protean treatment of the same theme. One must take into consideration that the two works – although grounded upon identical motifs – differ in weight. Confrontation-Encounter is a heavy piece of work, using up a lot of material and space; on the other hand, Aphasia-Reflex is a work that has been dematerialised as it is almost completely made up of massless light.

However, what is more important to this work is the sense of intimacy that Aphasia-Reflex brings, something that Confrontation-Encounter does not have: it incorporates the shadow of the viewer upon the artwork. The viewer is physically connected to the artwork, and we have a definite sense of closeness. In Confrontation-Encounter, there is evident distance; distance in the fact that the viewer stands in awe of the execution of the art. In Aphasia-Reflex, I allow the viewer’s responses and sentiments to be included inside the work, just by the fact that the viewer’s experience is part of the work.

Shedding and The Absence (2000)

The beauty of a wall painted with fluorescent paint is that by shining light upon a body, I can separate its shadow, and have it stuck upon the wall until as time passes – we perceive the imprinted shadow to fade away, leaving only a memory of the shadow. Shedding and The Absence are works that both incorporate this severing technique. I take the viewer’s shadows and objectify them as part of my art.

From the centre of the room, a device projects light when it senses a viewer enter the room for Shedding. The projector sweeps the fluorescent wall by rotating 360 degrees, creating silhouettes of the viewer(s) who have entered the room upon the wall. The Absence is in a way an extension of Shedding. A spotlight shines constantly upon the fluorescent wall, and in front of it are two chairs. One is empty, but the other is occupied by a life-sized figure, facing the other chair. A viewer might enter the room and seat himself on the empty chair across from the immobile figure – and the fluorescent paint upon the wall works so that when the viewer gets up and leaves the chair, the silhouette of the viewer sitting down is left on the wall.

In both works, my art is in fact, enclosed in darkness. The fluorescent wall is the only part of the artworks that absorbs light and reflects it back to us. Therefore: when a body stands (or sits) in between the source of light and the wall, the silhouette is created upon the wall due to the lack of light – and as said before, once enough time passes, the viewer perceives his shadow to disappear. However, it is yet again a confirmation of the fallibility of our senses, because it is not the silhouette that disappears, but that light is reabsorbed onto the wall. The viewer leaves evidence that he has definitely been there with the imprinted silhouette. There is a faint whiff of a stagnant sense of time, as the viewer is aware of watching himself as the object upon the fluorescent wall.

More importantly to The Absence is the presence of the immobile figure seated on the stool; there is a certain ambience that someone else is observing the left traces of the viewer’s existence and musing about it. This immobile figure sees the viewer’s coming in, sitting down, gingerly mixed with perplexity and curiosity, the vacant stare at the seated figure, and leaving the place with the last glance to the inscribed shadow on the wall. Between the moments of the stool being occupied, and even after the person has deserted the place, the observer silently ruminates the after-taste of the existence – in other words, the absence.