Jeman Seo,
Tour Guide, 2025, Oil, graphite, oil pastel on canvas,
180x150cm ©N/AN/A
presents a solo exhibition 《Grand Detour》 by Jeman Seo, on view
through April 20.
This
exhibition does not present a journey for cultural refinement but a record of a
journey taken to escape it. Instead of the 'Grand Tour,' which only 'captures'
ruins and masterpieces, Seo wandered loosely through an unnamed city on a
blurry map, slowly regaining the senses he had lost in Seoul.
Jeman Seo,
Stay Broken Forever, Tentennano, 2025, Oil, graphite on
canvas, 60x50cm ©N/AThe
indescribable memories from the journey scatter as lines and colours, drifting
across the canvas, and the painting ultimately becomes the most honest way to
express that imperfection.
In front
of his large paintings, which dominate the viewer's field of vision, we are
first besieged by a sense of unfamiliarity, rather than the question of how to
read them. And before we can ask why a line is stretched this way, or why a
color is smeared like a bruise, we are left to ponder where and how Seo's
painterly tentacles slipped.
Jeman Seo,
Small, Sick Murillo, 2025, Oil, graphite, oil pastel on
canvas, 180x150cm ©N/AFor the
artist and the viewer alike, seeing something through a painting may not be a
matter of what we see, but rather a matter of better confronting the
incomprehensible for what it is. Returning to his studio after a detour to
Italy, Seo moves his hands, and this time, the viewer follows his movements.
The experience made possible by this exhibition is also a 'grand detour', a
journey with a destination set for the process of detouring.
