Time, Body, and Silence
Sangghil Oh
Time-based artist | Body | Resistance | Trace | Silence
“What cannot be said—must be drawn, screamed, or scattered.”
Sensation and Time —
Where Matter Has Passed
These drawings are not “paintings” in the traditional sense,
but closer to reactions of sensation.
As a brush loaded with thick, charcoal-mixed medium crosses the surface,
its vibrations spread, ripple, and at some point—begin to fall.
No shape, no meaning was predetermined.
Only the slow movement of the brush layered upon itself.
Thus, on this surface,
what remains is the trace of a body that arrived before time.
Untitled, 2025
charcoal & medium on paper, 42.9 x 30.8 inches
Not a single stroke, but the weight of time slowly accumulated.
untitled, 2025
charcoal & oriental ink with water on paper, 42.9 x 30.8 inches
Attempts not to capture the surface, but the currents running beneath it.
A slight tilt, a faint incision—layers of time.
untitled, 2025
charcoal & oriental ink with water on paper, 93 x 42.9 inches
Across and beneath the dark planes, time folds along the spreading cracks.
Untitled, 2022
charcoal with medium on paper, 30.8 x 42 inches
Ink leaves the trace of time, then seeps into the paper.
The tremor of a hand, etched and unerasable,
pushed each layer of emotion upward.
Untitled, 2022
untitled, 2022, oriental ink with water on traditional paper, 56.4 x 30 inches
Soft, slow strokes. Ink that bleeds and flows—and time that has lost direction.
Untitled, 2022
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pigment & oriental ink with water on traditional paper, 56.4 x 30 inches
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Artist's Note / July 8, 2019
I dropped small droplets of ink-and-pigment mixture onto mulberry paper.
They spread, soaked, clashed, fused.
I rubbed them with my fingers, gently wiped them away,
then moistened the surface again.
Thousands of droplets fell.
The paper absorbed some. Others, it resisted.
In the end, it was like a wrestling match with the paper.
The movement—before forming any shape—had already become drawing.
For me, the point was never the “image.”
It was the “event.”
And only where the event passed, did a surface of sensation remain.