Ra Inseok: *even a straight line reads as a curve*. Seoul Tower, Lotte World Tower, and a Monami ballpoint — everyday icons of straightness revealed as bent.
Ra Inseok says this about himself.
"I prayed to gain a superpower, and ended up with the ability to capture a bent and curving world. Because of that, artist Ra Inseok sees even a straight line as a curve. Call it 'straight curves.' A straight line captured by the camera is a bent world."
Half joke, half truth. But after seeing his photographs, the ratio of joke keeps shrinking. Seoul Tower, Lotte World Tower, even a Monami ballpoint — all bend in his frame. He insists he has discovered it.
A Photographer Who Touches the Print
Ra Inseok's practice begins in pure photography and extends into visual art with photography as medium. To convey the tactility of a subject, he scratches the print paper so ink seeps through. Where photography is usually called record, he pulls it toward touch.
His solo titles summarize the posture.
- 2019 TOUCH (Gallery Bresson)
- 2019 Photography Touches the World (Photographers Gallery Korea)
- 2019 From the Event, From (Gallery Gupi)
- 2021 From the Bent World (Gallery Bresson)
The declaration that photography the world redefines looking as touching. Earlier trajectory: 2018 (Space Thein), 2015 (Photographers Gallery Korea), 2012 (Gallery Yuki, Seoul), and 2013 at Gallery Yuki, Tokyo.
