​흔적 After the Bark

What is seen does not arrive all at once. Forms appear shaped, held, or redirected, carrying signs of having been touched, adjusted, or left over time. These conditions take shape gradually, settling through repetition until change becomes part of their presence rather than something separate from it.

​

In her practice, Stella Oh remains attentive to these conditions. Through drawing and printmaking, pressure is applied and transferred, then returned to again. Images are printed, revisited, and allowed to smudge, blur, and shift. Rather than fixing an image in place, repetition opens it up, making visible the quiet accumulation of time, contact, and passage.

​

In 흔적 (Heunjeok) After the Bark, there is no attempt to resolve or repair. The work lingers where intervention has become ordinary, embedded within what is passed by every day. What remains is not a singular wound or stable meaning, but forms that continue under strain, carrying traces of what has shaped them forward.

​

Oh returns to these traces and their afterimages, inscribing them into the plate and releasing them onto paper.

​​​

​

​

보이는 것은 단번에 우리에게 도달하지 않는다. 형상은 오랜 시간에 걸쳐 만져지고, 조정되고, 남겨진 흔적을 품은 채 붙들리거나 밀려나고, 변형된 모습으로 나타난다. 이러한 상태는 서서히 자리 잡으며 반복을 거쳐, 마침내 변화는 형상과 분리될 수 없는 일부가 된다.

​

스텔라 오는 이러한 상태에 주목한다. 드로잉과 판화의 과정 속에서 압력은 가해지고 전이되며, 다시 되돌아온다. 이미지는 계속해서 인쇄되고 다시 다뤄지며, 번지고 흐려지고 변형된다. 반복은 이미지를 고정시키기보다 오히려 열어두며, 그 안에서 시간과 접촉, 지나감의 묵묵한 축적을 드러낸다.

​

《흔적; After the Bark》에서 해소나 회복을 위한 시도는 존재하지 않는다. 작업은 인위적인 개입이 일상이 되어 버린 곳, 우리가 매일 무심히 지나치는 환경 속에 머문다. 여기서 남는 것은 단일한 상처나 고정된 의미가 아니다. 다양한 압력과 시간을 통과하며 지속되는 형상과 흔적들이다.

​

작가는 이러한 흔적과 잔상들을 판 위에 그리고, 새기고, 종이 위로 옮겨낸다.

​

-작가의 글

​​

​

​

About the Artist

​

Stella Oh is a South Korean visual artist based between New York and Seoul. Working primarily in printmaking and drawing, her practice begins with close attention to everyday surroundings, focusing on forms that are often passed by, overlooked, or taken for granted. Through repetition and material process, she translates these observations into images that shift over time, allowing subtle irregularities, pressure, and accumulated change to surface.

Her work has been presented in exhibitions across the United States and South Korea. Alongside her studio practice, Oh works as an art educator, curator, and researcher. She received an MA in Arts and Art Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a BA in Art History and Studio Art from the State University of New York at Buffalo.