“Granular Landscapes”, an immersive joint exhibition of works by artists Soo Kim Yung and Claire Paul, debuted at the Spruill Gallery last week. On opening night, guests were invited to experience micro-sound installations, sculptures, paintings, and a series of works created with an unusual medium: thousands upon thousands of grains of rice.
Soo Kim Yung spoke with me about her dreamy pastel series called Rice Cakes. “I was painting, traditional painting, but I had a professor at SCAD and he challenged me with the idea to use nontraditional mediums, but something that has meaning to me,” said Yung.
“Growing up in an immigrant family from South Korea, because my parents worked all the time my grandparents came to help my parents raise us. My grandmother had this very particular thing about not wasting any food, particularly rice,” explained Yung. “She lived through the Korean war time when it was easier to get flour from the American army than it was to get rice to eat. Because of that I thought this is kind of a dialogue between me and my grandmother, intergenerationally. The way she sees it is different from the way I see it, but we could still share it together. There is something that connects us through this familiar item.”
Yung places the rice down on her canvas one grain at a time. She said it’s important to her to move slowly and intentionally because she’s using the process as means of paying homage to her ancestors who couldn’t find enough food to eat. The Rice Cakes series was started not only because she loves rice cakes, but also because she learned about the diligence and work that goes into making rice cakes. She found the process to be a compelling parallel to the process she employs in making her creations.
In addition to abstract works, Yung also makes landscapes out of the colored rice. In some, she endeavors to make compositions that both showcase the connections with traditional rice cakes as well as depicting scenes with rivers, mountains, and the like. She explained that rice cakes are meant to be shared in community with others, at special occasions such as weddings and celebrations.
During this process, she has learned more about the universal connection to rice that crosses cultural bounds.
While for Yung rice goes hand in hand with rice cakes, she has since heard other unexpected interpretations of the scenes, such as her husband saying that one piece looks like Easter eggs. “It kind of opens up the conversation,” said Yung. While the subject matter might be abstract or otherwise open to interpretation, the familiarity of rice as a medium has encouraged a variety of meanings to those viewing the pieces.
Meanwhile, in the two front rooms of Spruill were occupied with Claire Paul’s large pyramid-shaped installation that features a chandelier, faux flowers, beads, and video of birds in nests. Around the perimeter of the walls are framed works on paper, and in the adjoining room is a stack of televisions, a projector lighting up a wall with distortions of a flower, and a humming soundscape.
“A lot of the work that I do is really informed by experimental sound processes. I’ve been trying to think of how I can take these sonic processes and transfer them into visuals, and then translate them again into visuals,” said Paul of her process.
“The sounds you’re hearing include granulated processing, it’s a new technology that takes a tiny data snippet all over the palace from the data coming from the audio track, and then reorganizes them.” In this way, the bits of audio that she uses in her sound installation become these small granules which draws a connection to the rice works of Yung in the next room.
Paul explained her fascination with retro cassette tapes and new technology, and said she enjoys the exploration of sound works. “Sometimes the errors are the best part,” she said with a laugh.
With an undergraduate degree in music, she comes to the love of sound organically. She plays bassoon primarily and can also play many other wind instruments as well. Her husband is a singer, songwriter, and guitar player. For Paul and her family, sound is a medium that is a familiar and connecting force.
“I am a huge fan of performance scores,” said Paul, who seems to find a lot of joy in the experimentation inherent in her work. “A lot of it is just fumbling around with ideas, and meeting other people who are playing with weird technology, and learning how they did that. A lot of this is trial and error.”
The exhibition will remain on display through June 6, 2024.