If visitors come into Real Art Ways and see the artwork by Insook Hwang and leave feeling happy, Hwang will feel that she has done her job. “The Energy-Love: Miracle” was created in a spirit of happiness, to spread happiness, and for no other reason.
“It is all about precious memories I have and sending them out to the universe,” said Hwang, who lives both in her native South Korea and in New Haven. “When we have happy memories we want them to last forever. I want to send mine out like energy.”
Hwang’s installation, in the Real Room at the Hartford art space, is three huge grids each made of 80 sheets of paper, eight wide by 10 high. Two smaller grids are mounted on the side walls of the gallery. The papers are printed with a deep blue background spangled all over with circular and wiggly multicolored designs that resemble organic elements seen in a microscope. Circular lenticular images and little fish-eye mirrors are glued randomly onto the surface of the grid.
The lenticulars depict happy moments of Hwang’s life: her mother among pink flowers, East Rock in New Haven, Lighthouse Point Park in New Haven and herself in a yoga-like position, her arms spread like a Hindu deity.
“East Rock is yellow, because of warmth, sunlight. The lighthouse is blue because of water and freshness. My mother is among pink flowers because pink is soft and sweet,” she said.
As for the mirrors, Hwang said she likes that they look like planets, and they encourage viewers to place themselves in the space. “The mirrors reflect the people living in the present moment, feeling happy now,” she said. “I used convex mirrors because I wanted the volume of the space, to take it all in.”
Hwang’s method is to create images with acrylic paint on canvas using stencils, stamping and other non-painting applications, and then photographing the images, putting them into a computer and manipulating them to create a large-scale integrated design. She then divides the design into 80-piece grid and prints out each piece.
Rather than go for a smooth uninterrupted design, Hwang uses white borders on each printout. “I want it to keep an impression that you’re looking through the window,” she said. She calls the finished product her “energy field.”
“I layer the images, distort them, merge them. I let the image happen,” Hwang said. “I give all the elements order and deliver the vibration of energy. I don’t feel that I created it. I feel that I delivered it.”
INSOOK HWANG: THE ENERGY-LOVE: MIRACLE will be at Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor St. in Hartford, until Sept. 18. realartways.org.
