Chartwell Notes

Jeena Shin's paintings are highly individualised models borne of her interest in three-dimensional space. Using the constraints of a rectangular canvas she marks up a progression of small irregular triangles which flip, split, layer and replicate across the surface. It is a manual process, made with exacting care, in a highly responsive manner. Assessing as she goes, Shin looks for the moment in which the spatial relationships become so confused that the canvas itself is making optical triangles, seeming to fold the applied paint behind it. The paintings are optically challenging and incorporate the shifting eye. This is carefully calculated by Shin, who uses the light's movement across the surface as an external mechanism that animates the artwork once more.

The word 'motus' means a movement or an impulse, and as the work's title it evokes a sense of the triangles' complex activity both as distinct entities that twist and turn and as a swarm which produces a visually kinetic whole.

- From the exhibition catalogue of Necessary Distraction: A Painting Show, at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki