Ahn Hee-Sun - In the Flower Garden : : NG ART GALLERY : :

AHN HEE-SUN
In the Flower Garden

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Ahn, Hee-Sun has sewn herself a flowerbed rich in colour and personal history. The Korean artist, who has lived in Germany for the past twenty years, will adorn a wall of NG Art Gallery with her intricate, patterned cloth pieces. Hee-Sun’s technique combines traditional embroidery and sewing with patterns of flowers and birds reminiscent of folk paintings. What makes Hee-Sun’s pieces stand out from traditional craft is the brightness and vibrancy of colour she employs. Through this integration of visual mediums, the small rectangular pieces create a type of Garden of Paradise, where colour is woven in and out of the individual pieces, dancing and playing off each pattern.

Embroidering all the pieces herself, Hee-Sun heralds from a silk merchant business her mother and aunt ran when she was a child. Her medium is not a discussion about femininity, but rather a return to her childhood and her traditional roots. In this sense Hee-Sun’s pieces incorporate not only her attitude to art and beauty, but also her personal history of art. When viewed together the tapestry of embroideries can be read like a book of Hee-Sun’s life, a figurative autobiography.

From the diversity Hee-Sun’s works provide, Australian audiences will be able to readily tap in to the universal experiences expressed through her chosen medium. In Hee-Sun’s case the flowers are representative of her conceptual memories and stories of her childhood. However, the flower works do not discriminate, allowing for the audience to

For further information, please email ng@ngart.com.au