HANMI GALLERY is pleased to present exceptional works by Britain-based contemporary artists Patrick Hughes, Julie Cockburn, Wen Wu, Tom Hunter, Rupert Shrive, Jess Littlewood, and Korean artist Sankeum Koh at Art Gwangju 2012. Located in central London with operations in Seoul, HANMI GALLERY is dedicated to creating a bridge between the Eastern and Western art scenes and promoting the finest of modern and contemporary art to an international audience.

 

PATRICK HUGHES

 

Patrick Hughes’ works invite the viewer to experience the relation between the self and the work of art. With their rhythmical shapes and meticulously painted surfaces his witty combinations of painting and sculpture not only illustrate multiple points of view from a three-dimensional perspective, but defy the senses with a dizzying sense of paradoxical motion.

 

Patrick Hughes lives and works in London. Widely recognised as one of the major painters of contemporary British art, he is also a designer, teacher and writer. His works are part of many public collections including: the British Library and the Tate Gallery, London; the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow; the Deutsche Bibliotheek, Frankfurt and the Denver Art Museum.

 

JULIE COCKBURN

 

Julie Cockburn is a poignant British artist who bases her practice on found photographs and paintings, working in particular with fascinating studio portraits from the 50s and landscapes. Cockburn appropriates these images by embroidering and reassembling them, thereby completely transforming them in the process.

 

Julie Cockburn studied at Chelsea College of Art and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. She was the 2010 Salon Art Prize Winner from Matt Roberts Arts in London. Her work is included in collections throughout the world and she has exhibited extensively in the UK as well as in Europe and the United States. She lives and works in London.

 

WEN WU

 

Wen Wu was born in China, where she began training as a painter at the age of 7. Over time she has developed a superb painting technique. As a passionate artist she is obsessed with beauty. The artist considers oil painting as being the best way to represent her ideas and discover herself. She is able to represent her unique sensitivity and aesthetic sense of beauty by carefully selecting figurative imagery and particular thoughts from various histories and cultures.

 

Wen Wu graduated from the Academy of Art and Design Tsinghua University in 2001 and London Metropolitan University in 2005. The artist lives and works in London.

 

TOM HUNTER

 

Influenced by Old Master painters such as Vermeer, Tom Hunter explores his surroundings through photography. Instead of creating snapshots of everyday life, the artist’s compositions refer both to the heartrending life of those living on the fringe of society and painting masterpieces, portraying the unchanging human condition throughout centuries.

Tom Hunter graduated from the London College of Printing in 1994 and took his MA at the Royal College of Art, where, in 1996, he was awarded the Photography prize by Fuji Film for his series ‘Travellers’. The artist lives in East London and his work is often particular, but not exclusive, to his community and neighborhood.

 

RUPERT SHRIVE

 

Testing the possibilities of painting the artist, Rupert Shrive juggles fragmented memories into images while exploring the boundaries between this medium and that of sculpture. The distortions created by Shrive on his malleable works convey emotions that would not be originally though of while viewing the appropriated portraits. It is only through the artist’s effort that the viewer is able to experience a unique perception of the human face.

Rupert Shrive was born in Norfolk in 1965. In 1987 he graduated from Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design. He now divides his time between London and Paris. He has recently been featured in internationally renowned art critic Michael Peppiatt’s new book, Interviews with artists 1966-2012, alongside artists such as Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, Diego Giacometti, and Jean Dubuffet.

 

JESS LITTLEWOOD

 

Through the accumulation and appropriation of images collected, Jess Littlewood builds new worlds that are ever evolving, providing testing grounds for unending questions and possibilities. Although these worlds are a place to contemplate humanity in general, the most frequent subject for interrogation is belief, whether it takes the shape of a conventional religion or a more mystic form. The transient inhabitants of these worlds are never revealed but are always present in some way. Utopia is always strived for, yet lies beyond grasp and is a continual force of destruction and folly. Nature, mountains in particular, are dominant and overbearing and continually triumph over attempts at creation.

 

Jess Littlewood studied at Kingston University and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. She has exhibited widely in London in recent years, where she lives and works.

 

SANKEUM KOH

 

Sankeum Koh meticulously assembles pearl beads or steels balls to create an illusion of blurred texts. Sourcing from newspaper columns, books, and poetry, Koh transforms literary words into fragmented visions, challenging the validity of such texts in newspapers and questioning the dogmatic approach of its readers. Thus the written article transcends into a purely visual form that is independent to the arbitrary content of the original text.

 

Sankeum Koh holds a MFA in Fine Arts from the Pratt Institute, New York and a MFA in Painting from Ewha Womans University, Seoul. Koh’s works are present in Kyeounggido Museum of Art and National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea.