CAAS hosts second art residency at East Atelier Gallery

By Bereket Alemayehu

East Atelier Gallery in central Seoul has been supporting the creative activities of international artists based in Korea and overseas. The art gallery, located right outside the east wall of Jongmyo Shrine, hosts international group exhibitions and space for foreign artists to work in.

“I communicate with young artists from all over the world through social media every day," Kim Bo-na, CEO and owner of the gallery, told The Korea Times. "Many artists are very interested in Korea and want to hold exhibitions in Seoul. We have selected a few of them and have been holding international exhibitions."

It is currently running its second art residency program, operated by its production company Central Artist Agency Seoul (CAAS), which provides support for 11 artists — two of whom are foreign, coming from Japan and the U.S.

Kim said that the idea of the CAAS residency program began with providing the central space of the exhibition hall as an atelier for participating artists who are talented but lack their own workspaces.

"The participating artists gathered together and began to create large-scale works that were difficult to create in a small space. What was even more interesting was that the artists naturally shared their art and exchanged ideas and opinions, and the quality of their artwork improved rapidly," she said. "Even some full-time artists who already had their studios were attracted by our program and are working at the CAAS exhibition hall."

The CAAS residency program is sponsored by East Atelier and the Korea International Artists Association. It started Jan. 5 and will end March 5. The 11 resident artists will display their work at CAAS' fifth group exhibition, titled “Cleaning,” which opens March 7 and runs for three weeks.

One of the residents is photographer A.C. Parsons, originally from California, who has been living in Daejeon for the past 20 years. As it’s his first-ever residency, he commutes from Daejeon to Seoul every week.

“I've been taking pictures for about 20 years, but only got seriously into photography 10 years ago and started doing exhibitions with my work in Daejeon, and soon that developed into me showing pictures in Seoul and other parts of Korea as well," he said.

When East Atelier put out a call for resident artists in December, he decided to reply "just to see if I could get in."

"I knew it would be difficult for a photographer to join a group with painters and sculptors, but I decided to try anyway," he said. "When I joined the residency, all the artists here were talented. Thir particular creative spirit and the friendliness of participants make it an awesome place to work, which motivated me to try new methods and new ways to grow as an artist. So, I started with painting, and when I didn't do so well at painting, it developed into me trying to study and learn new methods of photography."

He admitted that the group exhibition's theme on cleaning seemed challenging at first.

"As a photographer, it's kind of hard to think of different ideas for cleaning," he said. "I found a motivation from 'The Karate Kid' movie, where they use various cleaning techniques in training, and I wondered what that would look like if I used those movements in photography.

Parsons has been particularly interested in Korea's traditional markets for many years, and he took his camera with him to Gwangjang Market.

"Steam is a very important part of cleaning," he said. "Walking around Gwangjang Market, I see lots of steam coming out from various places, which reminds me of cleaning."

He works mostly at night, when he can use the lights of the market and other places around downtown Seoul to his advantage.

"I combined the movements that I tried from 'The Karate Kid' with light painting. I have a few hundred of those different kinds of photos, with the theme cleaning. I set up some scenes in my apartment where I could photograph and then make the scenes into illustrations. I took about 10 or 15 photos and turned them into illustrations to promote various ideas related to cleaning as well."

He is working on a zine with over 100 pages, which will serve as his journal about the residency.

For established Japanese artist Satoko Terada, this is her second residency program in Korea.

Because her art is focused on deep personal expression, she needed to communicate with the outer world as well, and by participating in the residency, she learned to use different materials and new techniques, which in turn boosted her creative endeavors.

Korean national Park Soon-young, a self-taught artist, expresses a conscious interpretation of unconsciousness through his vivid color paintings. He works especially in cubism, a revolutionary art movement created by Pablo Picasso that began in Paris in the early 20th century. He participates in the residency program about four or five times a week.

“I've been painting since 2021. and being a part of CAAS#2 residency means that because the space is always open and most of the time artists are there, I can naturally see how other artists' process works," he said. "But the most impressive part was the concept of an always-open studio for people. When people come inside, there is an artist making art and you can directly ask about their art. That makes people more connected with art and it helps people have a more comfortable approach to art.”

Visit @eastatelier_gallery on Instagram for more information.

Bereket Alemayehu is an Ethiopian photo artist, social activist and writer based in Seoul. He's also the co-founder of Hanokers, a refugee-led social initiative and freelance contributor for Pressenza Press Agency.