Modularity Space

2018-2020 

…Representation is dominated by Imagination. Representation becomes nothing but a body of expressions with which to communicate our own images to others.

-Gaston Bachelard in The Poetics of Space

The image of a bedroom with Earth’s moon materialized in full color when I read about India Mahdavi’s global approach to interior design[1]. She said, “I see space being divided by curtains instead of having walls. Because it gives you the modularity.” I was inspired by her use of colors, textures, and shapes to create livingscapes that are both otherworldly and familiar.

Painting the human spaces alongside the solar objects felt like creating miniatures, a subject matter to which Gaston Bachelard dedicated an entire chapter to examine how they shape the imagining being through fantasy and daydreaming. In it, he stated: “One must go beyond logic in order to experience what is large in what is small.” I wanted to explore this space beyond logic to exercise my imagination. The lush images of planets, dwarf planets, and moons[2] provided a creative foundation for exploring different elements to create my own dreamscapes that are both otherworldly and familiar.

This series of eleven paintings depicts various human spaces that reflect the solar objects in their glorious colors and swirls against dark nothingness. Painting this series brought me back a fond childhood memory of building Lego houses and spaceships, of making my own rules and improvising, of taking joy in things that are cute, funny, and mind-blowing.

Se Jong Cho

2/12/2022

[1] Collins, L., 2018. India Mahdavi, Virtuoso of Color. The New Yorker.

[2] Many of which were obtained from NASA Solar System Exploration. URL https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/