Hello Sweet Heart, It Is A Bit Closer But Still Far From It Too

Jongil Ma

Hello Sweet Heart, It Is A Bit Closer But Still Far From It Too

wood, rope, metal bolts and nuts

Jong Il Ma’s large-scale outdoor installation is created through the organic interaction of creativity and space. Thin wooden strips of various lengths and types, both colored and uncolored, are flexed, twisted, bundled, and arched in unique response to the space. The installation engages its space, transforms it, and offers multiple perspectives. These colorful mind-maps reference bridges, airport structures, and factory buildings, recalling the raw beauty of modern industrial engineering. The enormous physical pressure and tension used in creating the gracefully curved lines, delicate joineries, and temporal forms speaks to the fragility and ephemeral nature of human relationships, and conversely to the balance and stability in nature. The conflicting sensations of pleasure and danger, excitement and trepidation, are the complex emotions and suppressed inner feelings that his art grapples with and reflects.

Jongil Ma obtained his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2002. In 2006 and 2007, he participated in public art projects sponsored by the Ministry of Culture & Tourism of Korea in Kwangju and Damyang respectively. In 2008, he won the Socrates Sculpture Park Fellowship and exhibited at the Park. His work was also exhibited at the 2009 International Incheon Women Artist’s Biennale, and at a solo exhibition at Roger Smith Hotel Gallery. Additionally, he received the AHL Foundation 2008 Visual Arts Award. This year, in addition to participating in Jamaica Flux’s Workspaces & Windows 2010, he is showing his work at the Lodz Biennale in Poland.
Hello Sweet Heart, It Is A Bit Closer But Still Far From It Too is a Jamaica Flux Commission co-produced by Arts Council Korea and Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning with support from National Endowment for the Arts .