Domestic Bliss and a performance by Eric Scott Nelson

Saturday evening I found myself at an art exhibition called Domestic Bliss, an exhibition put together by the International Artists Community here in Korea. Saturday night was their opening event and a friend of mine, Eric Nelson, had mentioned that he would be performing.

I must say, I'm no artist and, while I think that art is pretty to look at, I don't usually "get it". Therefore it's hard to find me at one of these things. We wandered around the two small galleries and then hit up the food table while waiting for Eric's performance. While munching down on the snacks a Korean woman seemed very surprised to see me and my boyfriend. She looked vaugly familiar too, but until she said where she knew us from, I hate to say that I couldn't remember at all. Back about a year ago, she and some music students had come to my Korean class to teach us some traditional Korean songs. I didn't take any pictures of the event, so it never got posted here... but this woman had just happened to be my teacher on that particular day! So, we started chatting it up over snacks and free beer and it comes to turn out, they were performing with our friend Eric. Soon after that, they changed into lovely hanbok and I had to get my photo with them!

Finally it was time for the performance to start. I had heard that Eric's performances tend to be a little strange and interesting, so I was curious to see what he was performing this night. I had heard talk of rice and singing, and the title was "Eric and the Sirens", the girls, of course being the sirens.

It began first with Eric making a house with light blue colored rice... and then pouring rice over himself until the can was empty.

Then entered one of the singers. She started pouring a darker blue line of rice along the ground, and eventually making another house for Eric to sit in. She poured rice over his face until that container was empty too...

Then entered the second "siren" to lure him away from the first and down a deeper blue trail to another house...
...Where she drowned him in the dark blue rice...

I must say it was certainly interesting to watch, and totally out of the ordinary. I must admit I didn't "get it" as usual, but upon talking to him after the show, he explained that the Sirens were luring him into the depths of the sea and slowly drowning him.

Here's us and Eric. I think you can still see the blue on his face from the acrylics he used to make the rice blue. :-)

While I was at the exhibition, I happened to bump in to Joy from the blog Foreign/er. This is now the second blogger I've met around but I always feel it's really strange to meet another blogger. I mean, when you follow someone's blog, you start to feel as if you know them. But, then when you see them in real life, you remember that you don't actually know them at all and you're not sure if it's proper to go over an make conversation with this total stranger that you happen to read about several times a week. I finally got up the courage to say hello, and I'm glad I did. Joy seems really great! If any of my readers happen to see me around, please stop and say hello!

The exhibition is open from August 18th- August 28th at Jay Gallery & Na Gallery (SK HUB PLAZA B-107/8) in Insadong and has contributions from Korean and international artists.