The Covid Diaries 63 – White Cube Bermondsey, Park Seo-Bo / Jessica Rankin (LAST CHANCE TO SEE)

A review of the exhibitions now on at White Cube Bermondsey. Both Park Seo-Bo and Jessica Rankin bring a splash of colour and a slow approach to art which encourages mindful viewing.

Compare And Contrast At White Cube Bermondsey

We continue our exploration of London’s commercial galleries today with not one, but two artists. Both Park Seo-Bo and Jessica Rankin currently have works on display at White Cube Bermondsey. This is a great opportunity to compare and contrast the two; I found that I was able to draw out connections between them which may not otherwise have come to mind.

White Cube Bermondsey is also a great space to get back into art in real life. As the name suggests, it’s the ultimate gallery space – cool and with that ‘new installation’ smell; tall white walls; concrete floors so highly polished there was someone practicing their moonwalking while I was there. And with more than one artist to see, it feels close to being in a museum space. Bliss!

Let’s jump into the art now and see what we can discover.

Park Seo-Bo

Park Seo-Bo is a 90 year old Korean artist whose work draws on Pop Art and Op Art, as well as a ‘graphisme’ which is somewhat reminiscent of Cy Twombly. The works on display here are mostly from the artist’s Écriture series (‘écriture’ = ‘writing’ in French). There is a great blend of modern aesthetics and bold colours with traditional materials and considerations. For a lot of the works, Park utilises traditional Korean mulberry bark paper, called hanji. This paper is manipulated on canvas into regular peaks and crevices, and painted with complementary pigments once dried. The result, particularly when viewed in multiple formats in White Cube Bermondsey’s largest space, becomes meditative. As the audience we are encouraged to slow down, to notice textures and colours, and to contemplate the differences and similarities between the works.

I really enjoyed this exhibition. The works were well-chosen, well-displayed, and showed the range that the artist has achieved even within the same series. I enjoyed learning about one of the first generation of Korean modern artists.

Jessica Rankin – ‘the nostalgia for the infinite’

Jessica Rankin comes from a very different tradition, but I found it interesting to note similarities between her work and that of Park Seo-Bo. Mostly this was in terms of what they ask from their audience. This series of work is largely abstract, combined with fragments of text on the sides of the canvases. On closer inspection, however, what look like rapid brushstrokes to produce large pools and splashes of colour combine with the traditionally feminine technique of embroidery. Embroidery is so much slower, more mindful, and yet the two techniques are almost indistinguishable from a distance. Rankin, like Park, encourages us to slow down, to take in the works and really look at them.

As someone who dabbles in embroidery myself I enjoyed the reclaiming of this ‘craft’, here elevated into fine art. Rankin’s works are aesthetically pleasing but also thoughtful. The textual fragments on the sides of most works can either elucidate the subject or pose more questions. In either case, it’s only by taking the time to really study the works that we get the most out of them.

Thank you to White Cube Bermondsey for pairing these two artists and making the exhibitions available for a short reopening. A masterclass of slow looking in a frenzy of excitement that art is available first-hand once more.

Park Seo-Bo – 3.5/5
Jessica Rankin, ‘the nostalgia for the infinite’ – 3.5/5
Implementing Covid measures – 4.5/5

Both exhibitions until 1 May 2021

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