Time, Body, and Silence
Sangghil Oh
Time-based artist | Body | Resistance | Trace | Silence
“What cannot be said—must be drawn, screamed, or scattered.”
The Line as Sensation
These lines do not depict any object.
Rather, they resemble traces left by something that passed through the hand.
A state before drawing—a moment when sensation unfolds on its own.
untitled, 2021
charcoal & oriental ink with water, on traditional paper, 78.6 x 54.6 inches
“These lines do not represent a ‘what,’
but emerge through a ‘how.’
Not from external movement, but from inner sensation.”
untitled, 2021
charcoal on paper, 59 x 38.9 inches
The point is not the direction of the line—
but the breath within it.
When swift strokes and slow thoughts endure one another,
the line trembles like language.
untitled, 2021
untitled, 2021
oriental ink with water on traditional paper, 56.4 x 30 inches
This drawing is not about “line,” but about “trace.”
Using varying densities of ink on the index finger,
the hand brushed, paused, and trembled across the surface—
without pattern or repetition.
Not to mark, but to disappear and leave something behind.
At the moment something begins to appear, it also begins to vanish.
untitled, 2021
charcoal on paper, 14 x 18.8 inches
Sometimes, a line resists in order to be seen.
Each stroke is a hesitation.
untitled, 2021
charcoal & graphite & oriental ink on paper, 25.9 x 19.5 inches
untitled, 2019
pigment & oriental ink with water on traditional paper, 56.4 x 30 inches
Nothing is certain—
and yet, that is the very thing that matters.
Writing Numbers, 1994
charcoal on canvas, 28.6 x 35.8 inches
These drawings were not conceived in thought,
but emerged as remnants of a bodily rhythm that could not be erased.
Thus, they explain nothing.
And yet, in viewing them,
something within you may remember them.