In the Absence of Ego series, graphite is consistently rubbed and accumulated on the dot patterns; while the Interstice series involved filling up the gaps between the color surfaces with graphite. The lines projecting from the flat surface of the canvas look like a series of “traces of events” that have gone through the process of wound and healing. A gap is produced in the tension created by the clash of several surfaces of planes spread widely on the canvas. The black-belt gap usually sits jagged in a composition where two or more screens of different colors are facing each other. That’s also what “interstice” means—to be at the present. For this exhibition, Soonik KWON also uses roof tiles to make his installation work in Whitestone Taipei.

Soonik KWON comes close to creating three-dimensional paintings by adding layers of color on to the flat surface of the canvas, producing a relief effect. On the canvas, fine sand is layered with paint, and on top of it, raised dots are drawn with graphite, and these layers are rubbed continuously. It can take as long as a month to stack colors in this way on a flat canvas. Through this peculiar practice, undertaken in complete silence, the artist says that he gradually forgets himself and falls into a state of mind absent of thoughts. As the artist puts it, “Living in the ‘present’ right now, it vaguely made me think that I should not sacrifice the present for the future, and not just stay in the pain or joy of the ‘past’, but stay at the present. Although there is a conflict between the two foreign substances, color and graphite, I thought it was a good thing to live in the present where I tried to harmonize well.”