Rite of Passage (2020)
Recently featured on San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art
Statement: Rite of Passage is a three painting series exploring the ambiguous nature of liminal states during rites of passage. Originally introduced by ethnographer Arnold Van Gennep and later reintroduced by cultural anthropologist Victor Turner, “liminality” explains the transitional metamorphic phenomena of altering statuses of participants. Commonly used to describe transitions within a community/society i.e. baptism, death, etc., liminoid conditions often subject both individuals and entire communities. Rite of Passage continues the ideas developed by revolutionary cultural anthropologists by providing a narrative that liminality and liminoid states are not necessarily always easily distinguishable as with some rites of passage such as Christian baptism. Continual renewal of pre- and post-passage rites can create cyclical journeys that result in a reintegration of identical liminoid states that may appear as entirely novel rites of passage instead of resumptions of previous rites.
Email grantgyun@gmail.com for gallery/purchasing inquiry.
Rites of Separation
Oil on canvas
30 x 40 inches
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Liminoid Rites
Oil on canvas
30 x 40 inches
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Rites of Integration
Oil on canvas
30 x 40 inches
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Canvas has been stretched and framed.
Exhibition Proposal: Ideally, this exhibition will utilize three walls, one for each painting. In order from left to right, “Rites of Separation” will be on the left hand side, “Liminoid Rites” will be in the middle facing the viewer directly as they walk into the exhibition, and “Rites of Integration” will be on the right hand side. The significance of having this exhibition use three walls is allow the viewer as they walk into the exhibition become the 4th wall and be placed into the art themselves. In-doing so, as they face “Liminoid Rites,” they suddenly become one with liminality. Human life is but an infinitesimal fraction of time prior to life and post life. These pre-life and post-life conditions of humanity are signified by the left and right sides of the exhibition to signify the current liminal condition we all are in.