Paintings that Embody the Meekness of the World and Korean Culture

Paintings that Embody the Meekness of the World and Korean Culture

                   Jun-seok Jang (Art Critic, Director of Korean Art Criticism Research)

Hyelim Chang is a passionate painter who studied and took her residence in the United States in the 1990’s. In the early days, Chang enjoyed drawing contemporary subjects, which can be called the world’s public paintings. However, as she became aware of the love and the preciousness of Korean art, originating from her own identity, she began to actively draw paintings with Korean characters. As the world became one with the advent of the postmodernism era and the cultural characteristics of each region became more important, Chang’s work was influenced. Chang’s Korean castle is not merely derived from the egoism of the region, but conforms to the postmodern globalization, and her work is a high level of coexistence of modernity and cultural artistic identity of Korea. 

It was a winter's day. A snowflake was like a white cotton bun with no cold feeling covered the desolate land. Outside the snowy window, it reminded me of my childhood home and winter scenery that I lost a long time ago. At that moment, the blindfold became hot, and two gazelles (male and female) who came down to find a prey looked bigger and bigger. I immediately began to sketch, and at that time, I started to learn the meaning of ‘the castle of the company’ and ‘how to express the subjects character”. <Author Note>

The area where the artist lives is the place where snow falls occasionally in winter, it is also the day she meets two gazelles who have lost their way, and while  watching them gaze, she missed home more and more, and began to create the Korean painting in full. Chang has been steadily expanding the world of ink paintings even in the harsh conditions. The artist is interested not only in the artistry and culture inherent in Korea that can maximize the benefits of today’s culture, but also aware of the depth of ink painting that can be said to be representative of the middle. In this way, while emphasizing the flow of the world’s art culture, the artist succeeds and develops her tradition, and humbly recollects the traditional ink paintings of Korea.  Unlike other artists, Chang paints a high picture. It is not easy to express the scenery of the hometown where the preciousness of the childhood erupted from the inside of her. Rather than drawing an abstract ink painting that can easily expand a lot of interesting and splendid paintings, Chang has always pioneered a formative world in which creativity is felt through depth and intensity through an inner fight with herself. Therefore, the author's work world, which pioneers the difficult genre of ink painting, especially modern ink painting, is very sincere with a formative depth.

In the ink painting of the artist, there is a human feeling, which conveys the warmth of her hometown, which is important for those who live in the desolate modernity and have loss the heart of their own hometown feeling. However, this kind of human beauty and emotion is not only the warmth that comes to be assimilated to nature, but also which is assimilated into nature.In the paintings that seem to have been assimilated into nature or have been preserved in the hometown, the expressiveness of the art forms is continuing.

Thus, the artist 's paintings have been motivated by the scenery of nature in her hometown of Korea. And her present experiences in the surrounding Princeton area. Chang has concentrated on the richness of the nature that the artist experiences. This is a true image of the real scenery of the place and expresses the inner hometown that she has in mind. Therefore, a series of arithmetic paintings is a collection of Korean nature, especially the beautiful hometown of Boseong, Jeollanam is perceived as a natural scenery of Korea in its image, and is deconstructive and metaphorical enough to transform traits in terms of form. Just as the Chinese classical philosopher, Zhang Zhao had speculated, as if poetry had freed the cattle freely. This may seem like an idea at first glance, but it can be said to be a high-dimensional creative act that projects the essence of the hometown village and the mountains. In other words, is through this emotional and psychological inspiration, the image of the hometown arithmetic is drawn in a gentle manner by the smearing effect of the watercolor, or it is expressed in depth as if it dominates the screen with rough and irregular strokes.

As such, the paintings of Korea's landscape has changed a lot over time. In recent years, the images seem to be more concise and compressed than the shape of the hometown mountain. This form has been developed continuously, and in terms of content, it is becoming more diverse and speculative. The artist 's works are not contemporary to any current trend of contemporary art history but are contemplative created by the sensitivity of the Korean people and their own honest expression. In America, like a person who lives alone in a deep mountain outside the world, and with a poet-like heart, Chang is enthusiastically drawing pictures of Korean inspiration and emotion. Her work depicts natural scenery where deer play, sparrows ply and, trees are subordinates. The rural scenery of her country has meekness and peace. Chang uses her hands to express and shape concepts that flow from her Asian and overall world experience. The images that are comprised from the inner side of the figure, which contains the beauty of the oriental tradition along with the simplicity of the images, her work has the strength and the harmony which flows from contemporary art.