Chul-Hyun Ahn or 안철현 is a light artist from South Korea who is known for manipulating perspective with light and mirrors to create portals of infinite space.
Ahn is from Busan, South Korea, which is a coastal city marked on the map above. He went to Seoul to attend Chugye University for the Arts where he received a B.F.A. After college he moved to the U.S. to attend the Maryland Institute College of Art to get an M.F.A. Ahn is currently 47 years old and living in Baltimore, Maryland.
Space is the root of Ahn’s art even though he is labeled as a light artist. He started on the subject of space when he was a freshman in college. He became frustrated with the limitations that 2D mediums put on exploring space. Ahn got the label of light artist because of his use of light to show off space in his works. The goal of many of his works is to help the viewer by calming them, offering an escape, or helping them find something. Emptiness is a work of Ahn’s shown in the picture above, that he hopes helps viewers find something when looking at it. There is an infinite emptiness between the two lights that is filled with something even if it’s just air as it shows the space between the lights exists.
Ahn currently has multiple ongoing series. One of these is series is called the Forked Series and has at least 39 pieces in it. The pieces in this series are created by having two mirrors behind a light with a one way mirror on top. Changes to light position and the mirrors behind the light creates the multiple pieces in this series, a few of which are shown above. This series highlights some of Ahn’s techniques as it uses reflections to make the light bend in different ways to create an infinity.
Primary tools that Ahn uses to create his works are mirrors and LEDs to create infinite space. He does this by layering the mirrors in a certain way and shining light on them. Details in how the lights bend and what direction the light fades in are used to give a deeper sense of space. To put the pieces all together he uses various types of woods and concrete to hold it in place. Tunnel #7 shown above, is an example of Ahn’s work that uses concrete to hold the lights and mirrors together. He uses elements of repetition and gradients on some pieces to make them look like the outcome of a computer graphic. Using the fact that the amount of each reflection in a mirror get consistently dimmer. Ahn uses a computer program called 3Ds Max to first generate drawing, especially for bigger pieces. He then uses the outcome data to start working with real objects.
Scratching mirrors is another technique that Ahn uses. A series of his called the Mirror Drawing Series uses this technique. This series is done by drawing the design on the back surface of the mirror with a sharp tool. It makes it so light can come through the scratches to make infinite reflections when light is projected from behind the mirror. Pieces are shown above that highlight that this process creates a calming infinite space. Ahn hopes that people could spiritually travel through these calm infinite spaces to escape reality by looking and falling into the calm infinity.