Two dogs guardedly eye each other from a distance. A forlorn Christmas tree lies on a deserted street, months after the holidays. What with the changes in the streetscape this year, the interests of Jisan Ahn (Busan, South Korea, 1979) have also shifted. His newest paintings reflect the situation in which we currently find ourselves throughout the world. Despite these dark times, his work has become more colourful, while what previously took place indoors now occurs in a more landscape-like setting – one with a limited range, however, situated in the nearby urban environment: ‘I cautiously open a window or a door.’
What awaits us when the storm dies down? Chaos, from which people take shelter underground, in a metro station. Damage, as we can see by a tree whose broken branches are lying in front of a store window or a bird that has lost its wings. However, decay does not exclude beauty; it even offers room for an aesthetic we previously took for granted. Says Jisan, ‘What has been damaged can still – or even because of that – shine. That’s also a part of life. After a period of being housebound, it’s suddenly special to eat an ice cream outdoors. Little moments of happiness like that are a new form of romanticism.’
Although the cause is often indeterminate, the damage is sometimes openly and deliberately inflicted by people. A man, his identity hidden behind the visor of a cap, holds a hare by its ears in one hand; in the other, he holds a pair of scissors, ready to cut. The motif of the hare has played a role in Jisan’s work for years, and among other things refers to Joseph Beuys’ famous performance ‘How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare’. Through its intuition, the indeed lifeless animal would be able to understand a work of art better than people who attempt to fathom art by means of reasoning. Do the scissors in Jisan’s work indicate a cruel act or are they a sign of liberation? ‘The scissors could represent an approaching change. Maybe I no longer need to question the hare.’