Exhibited Artwork

Illya Goldman Gubin's resin-treated cardboard objects, crafted through full-body engagement, become a meditation on the relationship between function, form, and beauty. Extending from the Karton series of 2020, the cardboard - typically linked to daily object - takes on a quiet, domestic presence. Its crushed, hand-formed surfaces evoke a half-remembered childhood tactility, prompting us to reconsider the significance of the everyday. For his first solo exhibition in Korea, Gubin presents a new series of white-cardboard works created in response to the local context. Unlike countries such as Germany, where ready-made white cardboard boxes are commonly available, in Korea white cardboard is rarely sold as an off-the-shelf product and usually must be custom-ordered. By choosing this color, Illya reveals how the most ordinary materials are not universal but culturally specific, showing that what feels mundane in one place can appear unexpected in another. Cardboard is constructed from an inner fluted layer sandwiched between two outer paper sheets; in white cardboard, the top sheet is white paper. When resin is applied, this white layer becomes translucent. As the surface loses opacity, the brown cardboard beneath begins to show through, shifting the object's appearance toward a muted grey-brown. This process reveals the material's layered makeup, exposing what is usually concealed. Staying true to their raw character, these objects gain renewed resonance. Forms once meant to hold and contain now suggest support, movement, and reversal - interior becoming exterior, and function opening into reflection. In transforming the everyday, Gubin reminds us that what we once carried may, in new form, carry us.