The Korean Cultural Center Washington, D.C. proudly presents Beyond the Rectangle, a new joint art exhibition featuring two New York-based artists, Cynthia Carlson and Byoung Ok Min, whose innovative, abstract works aim to disrupt the conventional notion of a bordered canvas. The exhibition launches with a public opening reception and artist introduction on Friday, June 10 at 6:00 p.m. and will remain on view through June 30 (no RSVP required).

 

If painting usually starts with a single rectangular canvas, both artists in this joint exhibition work to break down and expand that definition considerably. Literally thinking outside the box and drawing outside the lines, Cynthia Carlson and Byoung Ok Min create artwork that ventures beyond the rectangle. Carlson cobbles together various stretched canvases to create irregular polyptychs, painting across a mosaic of striking physicality. Min cements together fragments of unstretched canvas, creating visible seams and edges that spill over expected boundaries via both image and form. 

 

Each artist then paints their unique canvas with vivid designs that sometimes parallel, but mostly contradict, the physical structures viewers have come to expect from traditional artwork. In her search for aesthetic equilibrium, Min’s flowing lines deliberately undermine the works perceived edges, creating a kind of counterpoint to its shape, while cords embedded underneath the layered canvases add further depth. Carlson’s work forgoes physical texture in favor of geometric abstraction, which continually drives across one segment and onto another. 

 

Though of very different temperaments, both artists create individual works that provide a rich interaction of parts and a distinct visual excitement. 

 

Byoung Ok Min was born in 1941 in Seoul, Korea. She earned a B.F.A. from the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University and received the President of the Republic of Korea Award upon graduation.  She earned an M.F.A. from Pratt Institute in New York, where she remained to live and work. Her work was shown most notably at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Connecticut, Greenville Museum of Art in North Carolina, Sarah Lawrence College, Artists Space and the Soho Center for Visual Artists, and at New York City’s Sigma Gallery and O.K. Harris Gallery. In Seoul she exhibited at Gallery 63, Won Gallery, and Hakgojae Gallery, and her work is part of the permanent collections of the National Museum of Contemporary Art and Whanki Museum in Seoul. In the U.S. her work is in the collections of the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Chase Manhattan Bank, Mobil Corporation, and several other major U.S. corporations. She has received a New York State C.A.P.S. Award, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant, and an artist’s residency from the Yaddo Corporation.

 

Cynthia Carlson was born in 1942 in Chicago, Illinois. She attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and received her BFA in 1965. She moved to New York City and attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, graduating with her MFA in 1967. In the 1960s, Carlson's art was influenced by artists from Hairy Who & The Chicago Imagists. During the 1970s, she was a pioneer of the Pattern and Decoration group in New York City, in which the Feminist movement played an important role. Primarily a painter, Carlson’s work has evolved to include installation, sculpture, and public art commissions. Her career includes nine solo museum exhibitions and 47 other solo exhibits, including at galleries in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York. She has had several public art commissions, and numerous group exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe. She also taught for 40 years, first at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, then at Queens College, CUNY, where she is Professor Emeritus. She also served for more than 20 years on the Artist Advisory Committee of the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation.