‘Painting’ in 3D
A painting as a window onto the world. In the tradition of realistic painting, an object made of canvas/panel and paint, and surrounded by a lovely frame, may ‘act as if it is so’. And so one can acquire the unattainable. In the tradition of art history, there was a lengthy evolution in which representation moved to abstraction, the frame disappeared and the object was allowed to be what it was. Daun Jeong’s textile objects fit into this same trajectory, and surpass the painting arts.
In the fairy tale of Rapunzel, an important part is played by a tower window. Indeed at this window frame lived our damsel in distress. She had been locked up since the age of 12 by an evil witch who was given the girl by the father in exchange for rampion salad leaves. The tower window is her view onto the outside world, which she manages to pull inside – by way of a handsome prince – by letting her long hair down for him to climb. Such theatrical inside-outside antics also relates to Fabric Drawing#43 by Daun Jeong From this ‘window frame’ hang three strips of fabric, much like Rapunzel’s hair.
Stretching definitions
Upon closer examination, no abstracted representation of the fairy tale will be detected. The long strips of fabric are tightly plied around the frame and fall downward from behind. Viewed in this way, they wouldn’t dangle on the outside wall but along the inside, if we could see through the tower. Nonetheless, it is a fine example of Daun Jeong’s process; she paints with textile instead of paint and does so without a support. Here, the frame over which a blank canvas is normally stretched, becomes the framework for some very fluid brushwork. The brushstrokes are the skin and skeleton simultaneously.
For Daun Jeong this is at the core of all her work. Swap paint for textile and new worlds open up. She stretches and wraps strips and bands of fabric around wooden slats. The material folds around, swivels through, dives diagonally or plummets vertically… Jeong varies her fabrics so that she can play with texture, patterns, thickness and rigidity. With some stretchy textiles (such as sheer tights) she pulls apart parts of the material and a pattern of variables emerge within it.
All of her work gains a greater tactility than if it were executed in paint, and spatially there is more scope as well. A painting with a slash in it is either damaged or a Lucio Fontana. Jeong has a much richer toolbox for indentations and gashes.
Small works, neatly contained within their framework, alternate with large-scale objects in which the textile breaks free from the frame. But the frame, too, may move into the space and once she gets into the swing of it, her installations dominate the space. The possibilities are endless.
With merely her frames, fabrics and in particular her feel for tactility, colours, patterns and spatial awareness – the four pillars of her work – Daun Jeong manages to stretch the boundaries of both the painting and textile arts considerably.
Author: Frank van der Ploeg