Vernissage: Sunjin Chang

In the organizer's words:

The bar will be open and invites visitors to enjoy the works over a drink and talk about the exhibition. An inspiring evening full of artistic diversity and exciting perspectives awaits you. After the vernissage, the exhibition will be open on Thursdays from 4pm to 7pm. Last opening day is March 01, 2025.

Sunjin Chang, an artist born in South Korea and living in Germany, has built a bridge between Asian and European art traditions with her work. Her works, which combine both traditional and modern elements, have developed steadily since her studies in Seoul and Frankfurt. The works on paper created in 2022 in particular, which she describes as "soulful images", mark a return to her early abstract works. These small to medium-sized formats, which are created on dark cardboard, are characterized by luminous colors and abstract-organic forms that seem to come from a dream world. The areas of color overlap and create scenes reminiscent of mountains, flowers or birds. But where figures can be glimpsed, they appear more as aura or memory than as concrete substance. Chang's work moves in a space between this world and the hereafter, and is about relationships - depicted in shapes, colors and lines. The dark backgrounds enhance the emotional impact of the colors, which are used expressively and free from traditional conventions. These late works show a mature artist who is constantly developing her work and attempting to unite the worlds of her old and new homes into a space of her own. The reflection on her life and work is expressed in a synthesis of Western and Eastern art, in which color surfaces, lines and forms lead to an intuitive understanding. As Chang herself says about her work: "Life is a bit funny, artists are sad... You need imagination!"

The exhibition offers a fascinating mix of old and new works by Sunjin Chang. Organized by the Alter Mülheimer Kunstverein, it will include an impressive 10-metre-long work from her earlier creative cycle. This monumental piece, which showcases Chang's extraordinary ability to depict landscapes and spaces in a surreal-realistic way, forms the centerpiece of the exhibition.

At the same time, her more recent, smaller works, which Chang describes as "soulful paintings", will also be on display. These works, created on dark cardboard and captivating with bright, abstract forms and intense colors, reveal a deeper, poetic engagement with the transcendental and reflect her artistic evolution.