Man(u)fractured

Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop is unbelievably excited to present Man(u)fractured, a solo exhibition by Shinuk Suh, the gallery’s latest Artist in Residence.

Man(u)fractured is Shinuk Suh’s Solo Residency Show and marks an exception in the history of the gallery’s residency programme, as this epic piece will be exhibited in the main gallery. The sheer scale of Man(u)fractured, coupled with the outstanding merit and integrity of Shinuk’s practice made the decision obvious. This large scale installation, created and developed during his solo residency, has universal depth of subject as well as a remarkably timely reflection on our inability to unlock from the systems we have invented and escape their tragic-comic imprisonment. 

“My work begins with examining the ideology that my family, church, school and the army (the state apparatus) in South Korea infused into me. I felt a sense of deprivation in feeling the difference between my character and the ideological human image imposed on me. I seemed like a person who had fallen out of society. This ongoing sense of deviation often makes me flee from reality. By analysing myself voluntarily, I could get a view point from which I can see the situation on a macroscopic level.

Furthermore, I wanted to express the ironies created by the ideology and the time period of those who have been contemporary with me in a visual language as an artist. For me, visual expression is a multidimensional area, and it is an infinite space within which I can express many repressed emotions. I realised that the humorous and exaggerated behaviours expressed in the animated movies that I encountered in my childhood are extremely relatable to adult human behaviour, and so not just cartoon fiction. I have related many of these exaggerated behaviours to my own situation, and then expressed them in my work.

In reality, the cruel and tragic scenes in animation, which in life we wouldn’t find amusing, become a comic factor that induces audience laughter. Comedy in animation has a limited laugh allowed within it. However, if these same dark situations are seen in reality, they turn into a definite tragedy. Why am I accepting the misfortunes of others and finding them comic in animation? And why does the comedy become a tragedy in reality? I have not found the answer. These questions are key points that I am exploring in my practice.”