Eva Eun-Sil Han

Eva Eun-Sil Han is a South Korean-born collage artist  living and working in Brussels, Belgium. She has worked in a variety of styles over the years (with many exhibitions) but I first noticed her work some years ago and found her work both original and compelling in her approach to incorporating drawing with non-digital collage.

2 styles in particular really perked up my mental ears: the first, an unusual geometric approach reminiscent of crystallization, ballistic diagrams, and architectural schematics; the second, a streaming, organic flow like a dark spirit leaving one body to possess another (or the roots of a tree, or a stylized spume of blood), connecting disparate elements. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before or since, though the geometric approach is reminiscent of early Dada collage (which makes sense as Han lists the collages of Max Ernst as a major influence) and the spirit-plumes remind me somehow of anime / manga influences. Both are fairly early in her career so she doesn’t talk about them much, which is a shame in one sense but also leaves interpretation delightfully open.

Han has talked about her work, though, in conjunction with her 2009 show, Measured Emotions :

My work has involved the creation of conceptually based psychological objects and I use many geometric lines which helps me express my subconscious mind. For the show, I decided to call the name ‘Measured Emotions’ because there is a lot of geometry in your new works. The geometric lines remind me of schematic drawings and diagrams that are used for measuring things. But, instead of measuring objects or scientific things, they are maybe diagrams of emotional states. They are like ‘raw’ emotional states.

We can see people’s face emotions but how about if we can measure their emotions through shapes of geometry. Our emotions play an important role throughout the span of our lives because they enrich virtually all of our waking moments with either a pleasant or an unpleasant quality. I was wonder if we can measure our emotions with shapes of geometry.

“Measured emotions” might contain two meanings. One could be measured emotions as fear, amusement, anger, relief, disappointment, hope, etceteras instead of one isolated emotion and the other could be meaning that I measure all these shapes of geometry when I cut them or make lines for process my work. All shapes must be all in good measurement otherwise the shapes cannot be fitted each other. I measure my emotional statement when I work at the same time I measure these shapes of geometry.

To realize this emotional state in geometric shapes, I use many other type of colors and patterns papers cutting out images from magazines or vintage books using collage technique with mixed media such as oil painting or an acrylic.

Han’s work is quite different now, but is still non-digital collage, and she continues to explore relationships of form and surface. More of her work can be seen on her website.