INJUNG OH
www.InJungOh.com
Volossom originated from artist, InJung Oh. Oh received her MFA in 2009 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and has exhibited widely in Chicago and abroad. Working primarily as a painter, Oh has developed the concept Volossom, at once motif, philosophy, and generative process for her work. Volossom embodies the tension between chance and control in art: the prefix “vol,” rooted in the Latin word voluntas (to will), anchors the term to intentionality and aspiration, while “blossom” is a kind of energetic automatism, bringing to mind self-precipitating forms found in nature. Oh’s work incorporates antlers, erupting volcanoes, and blooming flowers – visually captivating forms that grow and develop as part of natural, unconscious processes. The unpredictable growth inherent in these forms reflects her attitude towards painting as a way of opening up towards others, the expression of an inner state made intelligible via oil on canvas. As a visual motif, the Volossom resembles both a flower in bloom and a slender leg extending from a dress, an uplifting symbol of future promise (voluntas is derived from velle, “to wish”) that reflects Oh’s characterization of the form as the manifestation of one’s will or desire.
Since introducing Volossom ten years ago with her painting King and I (2005), Oh has grown the concept into a platform www.Volossom.com for visual art, design, and social practice, separating Volossom from her studio work. She is focused now on experimenting with new materials and means of display, using a series of new canvas studies to investigate and taking chances of the possibility of freezing transitory moments between stillness and the movement, as well as painting and sculpture www.injungoh.com.
Yechen Zhao
Program Manager
The Arts Club of Chicago
“We saw works that felt like the soul leaving the body, that promoted progression, that presented a galaxy of possibility—and that illuminated paths to precipitating that possibility into reality.
Skillfully, she explained it: a cosmology compressed into a new fundamental force, one filtered into a worldview—an approach to life that becomes both habit of being and medium for expression. What Oh terms Volossom.
Having it taught to you is nice. But it can just as easily be transferred to you through the work—each piece, with magnetic sense of motion, becomes a visual autonym, a representation of meaning and meaning itself.
The movement of the pieces is powerful; you feel it even standing still. You are put in tune with the forward rush of time, the dancing of mysterious gravitational currents, the planet forcing you through slow revolutions, your very atoms jittering against the electric fetters holding them together.
We looked, and through her words and what we saw, were placed in liminal space, saw what it feels like to grapple with your spiritual self for that which exists beyond ken. Felt no transcendental knowledge, but saw it sitting smiling in the distance, and knew that it was possible to leap above all base matter below us to get there.
And finally, we were put in touch with a manner by which the present self can inhabit the future it desires, the work seeming a means and method both, providing blueprints for a sort of positive inertia that takes you from where you are to where you need to be.
It became clear to us that sometimes the philosophical can fit neatly into the physical, and the eventual can become the inevitable. New beginnings are always on offer, as the liminal is where we live.”
– by Sean Collins, Founder, Chromatic Watch
www.InJungOh.com
Volossom originated from artist, InJung Oh. Oh received her MFA in 2009 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and has exhibited widely in Chicago and abroad. Working primarily as a painter, Oh has developed the concept Volossom, at once motif, philosophy, and generative process for her work. Volossom embodies the tension between chance and control in art: the prefix “vol,” rooted in the Latin word voluntas (to will), anchors the term to intentionality and aspiration, while “blossom” is a kind of energetic automatism, bringing to mind self-precipitating forms found in nature. Oh’s work incorporates antlers, erupting volcanoes, and blooming flowers – visually captivating forms that grow and develop as part of natural, unconscious processes. The unpredictable growth inherent in these forms reflects her attitude towards painting as a way of opening up towards others, the expression of an inner state made intelligible via oil on canvas. As a visual motif, the Volossom resembles both a flower in bloom and a slender leg extending from a dress, an uplifting symbol of future promise (voluntas is derived from velle, “to wish”) that reflects Oh’s characterization of the form as the manifestation of one’s will or desire.
Since introducing Volossom ten years ago with her painting King and I (2005), Oh has grown the concept into a platform www.Volossom.com for visual art, design, and social practice, separating Volossom from her studio work. She is focused now on experimenting with new materials and means of display, using a series of new canvas studies to investigate and taking chances of the possibility of freezing transitory moments between stillness and the movement, as well as painting and sculpture www.injungoh.com.
Yechen Zhao
Program Manager
The Arts Club of Chicago
“We saw works that felt like the soul leaving the body, that promoted progression, that presented a galaxy of possibility—and that illuminated paths to precipitating that possibility into reality.
Skillfully, she explained it: a cosmology compressed into a new fundamental force, one filtered into a worldview—an approach to life that becomes both habit of being and medium for expression. What Oh terms Volossom.
Having it taught to you is nice. But it can just as easily be transferred to you through the work—each piece, with magnetic sense of motion, becomes a visual autonym, a representation of meaning and meaning itself.
The movement of the pieces is powerful; you feel it even standing still. You are put in tune with the forward rush of time, the dancing of mysterious gravitational currents, the planet forcing you through slow revolutions, your very atoms jittering against the electric fetters holding them together.
We looked, and through her words and what we saw, were placed in liminal space, saw what it feels like to grapple with your spiritual self for that which exists beyond ken. Felt no transcendental knowledge, but saw it sitting smiling in the distance, and knew that it was possible to leap above all base matter below us to get there.
And finally, we were put in touch with a manner by which the present self can inhabit the future it desires, the work seeming a means and method both, providing blueprints for a sort of positive inertia that takes you from where you are to where you need to be.
It became clear to us that sometimes the philosophical can fit neatly into the physical, and the eventual can become the inevitable. New beginnings are always on offer, as the liminal is where we live.”
– by Sean Collins, Founder, Chromatic Watch