Ilsun Maeng

In 2011 Ilsun Maeng won the student prize of the Bar Tur Photography Award at the University of the Arts London. In 2012 she won first prize in the Shape Open Award at the Portobello gallery in London.

“My work is about the act of seeing. To see something — that is, to perceive an object physically — requires a physical movement of the eyes. However, my neurological field of vision is limited. This condition gives me a unique perspective: to consider the invisible face of an object as the symmetry of the visible face.”

The Spinning Objects series is a recognition of the perfect world through repeated rotation and symmetry. Symmetry is obtained by continuously stacking lines to create a darker and stronger image. Despite these attempts, it is practically impossible to create a perfectly symmetrical image without any error, and in the end the images on paper become blacker, like objects that have been burnt, thus revealing their presence.

Rotation brings the object back to perfect symmetry. Whatever an object’s shape, when it has self-rotating mobility it loses its original form and becomes a large mass with only a curved shape. It is like a piece of clay turning and taking shape on a potter’s wheel.