People 1996

Se-Ok Suh made this artwork, called People, using ink, probably on paper. When I look at this piece, I see how it must have come into being, shifting, emerging through trial, error, and intuition. Imagine the artist holding the brush, thinking, what do I want to do? The repeated zigzags get darker towards the bottom, fading into a light wash at the top. Maybe they were thinking about mountains, or the movement of a flock of birds. It reminds me of Agnes Martin’s grids, which seem so simple, but are actually so hard to pull off. Is the paint thin or thick? And how does the materiality of the paint, texture, colour, and surface shape our experience of the painting? How do they contribute to the emotional and intellectual resonances of the work? Painters are always in conversation, exchanging ideas and inspiring each other's creativity across time. Painting, in this sense, is a form of embodied expression embracing ambiguity and uncertainty. It allows for multiple interpretations over fixed readings.