Time, Body, and Silence
Sangghil Oh
Time-based artist | Body | Resistance | Trace | Silence
“What cannot be said—must be drawn, screamed, or scattered.”
Drawing with Bare Hands
This drawing began not from tools,
but from sensation itself.
Fingers pushed, wiped, and brushed across ink and pigment.
Movements traveled through the skin,
and the sweat—still wet—bled into the time of sensation.
Erasing, trembling, pushing away—
the flow of sensation came to rest upon paper.
Untitled, 2011
pigment & oriental ink with water on paper, 64.3 x 31 inches
Pressure drifted from the center,
burst outward toward the edges.
Through the repeated rotation of the fingers,
small cracks gradually appeared.
Untitled, 2024
pigment & oriental ink with water on paper, 64.3 x 31 inches
The circular form—blurred and blooming—
divides both surface and depth.
A lingering trace of touch,
left as the hand passed the center.
Untitled, 2024
pigment & oriental ink with water on paper, 64.3 x 31 inches
The fingers stirred the surface,
and the ink followed that movement.
When it dried,
powdered pigment settled into stains
that could not be peeled away.
Untitled, 2019
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gesso & oriental ink on traditional paper, 56.4 x 30 inches
Movement left behind no clear form—
only the trembling of fingertips
remained as an afterimage on the paper.
Untitled, 2019
gesso & oriental ink on traditional paper, 56.4 x 30 inches
“For me,
drawing is not about making an image—
but recording the sensation of being lived.”
I set aside the brush
to feel the material and
time directly with my hand.
These works are, in a sense,
not to be seen as pictures—
but read as paintings of sensation.
Untitled, 2019
acrylic & gesso on canvas, 39.3 x 31.6 inches
The boundary between drawing and erasure
is not simply about reworking—
but about overlaying traces
where times coexist.
Some marks are buried,
others hidden,
as what remains coexists with newly overlaid lines.
Layer upon layer—drawn and erased—
accumulate time and fold space.
Past, present,
and future are simultaneously revealed.
Untitled, 2019
acrylic & gesso on canvas, 39.3 x 31.6 inches
Fingers move more responsively than tools.
They react like signals, vanish like traces—
and resurface in clearer sensation
as if what began as an erasure
became something even more vivid.
More than a picture—
these are records of unique,
nonlinear moments
left by the grain of a gesture.