I wrote an introduction titled 'Peeking into the Possibilities of Korean Spiritual Art' for the exhibition 'Sheemung Nolmung' by artist Hong Young-sook, from May 19 to May 31, 2023, hosted at Gallery Naeil. This writing led me to participate in the exhibition and get to know a few people in the art scene. It's almost a 'miracle of the art world' that Hong, who had no academic connections in the Korean art scene and barely communicated with the public through her modest artistic activities on Facebook, was awarded the '9th Jeon Hyuck-Lim Art Award'.
Jeon Hyuck-Lim is a world-renowned painter born in Tongyeong, Korea, who expresses the present state of Korea using five directional colors and cobalt blue. His work reveals the core aspects through the traditionality of materials and colors, the diversity of themes, and the simplicity of color schemes, showing the artistic world that Korean art should aspire to. The colors he uses reflect the cultural identity of Korea, known as 'pungryu' (ù¦×µ, elegance). Jeon Hyuck-Lim is best represented by works such as 'Korea Fantasy 12' (1989), 'Ilryun Wolryun' (1993), 'Salpuri' (1993), 'Abstract Landscape of Hallyeo Waterway' (2005), 'Tongyeong Port' (2005), and 'New Mandala', which met with traditional wooden utensils, where lyrical elegance is profoundly expressed.
Since early 2015, Kim Ee-Wan (director of Lee Young Art Museum) has been chairman of the Jeon Hyuck-Lim Art Festival. He states that the purpose of the Jeon Hyuck-Lim Art Award is to inherit the artistic spirit of Jeon Hyuck-Lim and to 'discover artists who dedicate their lives and artistic souls to universalizing the originality of Korean art.' The diverse and impressive evaluations from the four judges for Hong Young-sook, the 9th Jeon Hyuck-Lim Art Award winner, are noteworthy. Chairman of the judges, Kim Jong-Geun, commended her, saying, 'The artist's tireless passion and style, which traverses the realms of figuration and abstraction through diverse colors, align with one world and flow of Jeon Hyuck-Lim.' During the award ceremony, he expressed hope that 'the Jeon Hyuck-Lim Art Award will serve as a stepping stone for the artist to leap forward and grow into a distinguished artist with pride.' This award strictly evaluates only the artist's works and artistic life. Despite its short history, it is recognized as an authoritative art award in the Korean art scene, a fact worth boasting about. The fact that each awardee is selected without any controversy attests to a fair operating system Notably, the presence at the site of the 9th Jeon Hyuck-Lim Art Award included key figures such as Kim Ee-Wan, the chairman of the organizing committee, Kim Jong-geun, the chairman of the judges, members of the National Assembly, local politicians, related artists, and Jeon Young-Geun, the director who runs the Jeon Hyuck-Lim Art Museum and hosted the event. Their continued unity and concerted efforts inspire hope that the Jeon Hyuck-Lim Art Award will not just be an art award of Tongyeong but will become a globally prestigious art award.
Birth of a Scholar-Painter
Born in Seoul in 1964, Hong Young-sook is a scholar-painter who expresses a spiritual world transcending the realms of intellect and emotion. The artist, with her free-spirited and innate nature, does not confine herself to any particular framework. She was influenced directly by Hwang Jae-hyung, known as the 'Miner Painter,' and Choi Wook-kyung (1940-1985), a professor at Duksung Women's University and a resistance female artist, under whose influence she naturally experienced the artistic worlds of local artists such as John Walker and Glenn Goldberg during her studies in New York, developing a style as free as the wind. In particular, her advisor, John Walker, seemed to recognize her genius, even calling her 'the Korean Georgia O'Keeffe.' Especially connected through the Artist Residency program in Vermont and the New York Studio School in Manhattan, she continued to devote herself to extensive artistic production as a student even after her master's program.
Endorsed by Graham Nickson, the New York Studio School dean, she obtained a Master's degree around 1998 from the Pratt Institute in Computer Graphics & Interactive Media as 'the only artist' combining painting and computer work. She explores the blending and developing processes of colors through computer work, applying these to her painting techniques. Her works, expressed through the layering of countless planes, tend to expand in three-dimensional formality, encapsulating time and space. The symmetry and asymmetry, flatness and three-dimensionality, and the perfect cyclicality of expansion displayed in her works are expressed through the combination of tempera, computer, and the artist's structural artistic consciousness.
After many years of studying abroad, she returned to Korea to take care of her parents and made a late entry into the art world. Her works' chaos, pain, tears, and disorientation are expressions of a self-aware yet bounded situation where the path is known but cannot be taken. Even in such circumstances, she digests solitude and contemplation, avoiding the abyss of 'death' as a settled artist. She elevates it to a vibrant painting style that communicates with viewers through a refined emotional state. Her inherently free nature and the resistance consciousness acquired during her growth, shaped during her long years of study in New York, manifest loneliness and nostalgia, portraying a seeker's journey in her works that straddle the boundaries of East and West.
Artistic World of Hong Young-sook, Who Inherits the Essence of Korean Refinement
Scholar-painter Hong Young-sook, who inherited the essence of Korean elegance, creatively expresses the art vein of elegance on the universe's canvas. She freely applies and transforms the circular flow of color, like the wind, expanding and deconstructing it into a universal form of elegance. The essence of elegance is not merely about using Korean materials or themes; it transcends simple nationality. Choi Chi-won, who referred to Korean cultural authenticity with the term' elegance,' defined Korea's unique world of thought as an 'inclusive theory' that, despite absorbing foreign thoughts, still retains its uniqueness. This tradition, which not only assimilates but also merges and innovates upon foreign ideas, forms the basis of Korea's world of thought. In other words, inheriting the autonomous vein of elegance and assimilating and merging Eastern and Western styles through a historic 'artistic soul' represents Koreanness. Korea's humanities and arts face significant cultural barriers, including a Sinocentric worldview, a colonial worldview forged by Japanese rule, and an imperialistic Christian worldview. Jeon Hyuck-Lim globalizes and universalizes Korean painting with his humanities knowledge, which art critics rarely mention. Incredibly knowledgeable about ancient Eastern painting origins and the Christian Bible, Jeon works with a historical self-awareness of being a global painter. This historical empathy exists in the art world with Jeon Hyuck-Lim and in the humanities with Byun Chan-Rin. Byun Chan-Rin (1934-1985), from Hamnam Hamheung, demonstrated the characteristics of a historian who wanted to open a new axial age by transcending and innovating Eastern and Western thoughts. He interacted directly and indirectly with contemporary visionaries such as Kim Bum-boo, Ham Seok-Heon, Yu Yeong-Mo, Beopjeong, and Bae Yong-Deok. His major works include collections of his humanistic thoughts such as 'Zen Room Love Song,' 'Zen, The Grains Picked from That Field,' 'Principles of the Bible (Upper, Middle, Lower),' 'New Interpretation of the Revelation,' and 'SunMack Scriptures: Hanbak School.' If Seok Doryun knew Jeon Hyuck-Lim's introduction to the central art scene through the 'spirit of elegance,' the mechanism that contextualizes the art of Jeon Hyuck-Lim and the humanities of Byun Chan-Rin is also the 'art vein of elegance.' The Tao vein of elegance penetrates the Korean humanities and arts humanities as the soul of the Korean people. I predict that a new critical world will open if one reads the writings of Byun Chan-Rin and views the works of Jeon Hyuck-Lim because contemporary artists and scholars in humanities are aware that their artistic activities are of a global historical level. This is not a nationalistic self-assessment but an indication that our humanities and art criticism have been Westernized and colonized.
In this context, Park Saeng-Kwang painted a vivid Korea with rich indigo, red, and orange, lifting the Chinese and Japanese styles that heavily influenced modern Korean painting while not being buried in Western styles. Similarly, Jeon Hyuck-Lim, also from Tongyeong, left works that communicate globally with universal color tones without foreign studies or specific teachers. During a time when Korean painting could not digest ink wash paintings that could not escape the Sinocentric worldview and colored paintings from the Japanese colonial period, Park Saeng-kwang and Jeon Hyuck-Lim pursued the uniqueness and universality of Korean things and are treasures of the Korean art scene. Thanks to them, the name 'Korean painting' could be used in the world art scene.
Artist Hong Young-sook creatively inherits this vein of elegance. In other words, the framework of artist Hong Young-sook's artistic world wholly expresses the scholar-painter's vein of elegance, namely the spontaneity, receptivity, communicativeness, and expressiveness of Korea's thoughtful archetype. As a representative Korean artist embodying the art vein of elegance, Hong Young-sook says, 'I am more about expression than description, about pursuing methods rather than acquisition, so our contemporary artists did not resonate with me, but I recognize an artist between Park Saeng-Kwang and Jeon Hyuck-Lim, and that is Kwak In-sik.' She continues, 'Exploring the materiality itself... Monoha from Japan created a Korean monochrome painting, and the person who brought this philosophy and painting to Korea was Lee Ufan. If Lee Ufan's works demand silence by presenting challenging reasoning that is hard for Koreans to understand, Kwak In-sik's works aid understanding through visualization. For this reason (process), you can somewhat see the diffusing techniques of Park Saeng-Kwang, which seem to be absorbed and sucked in. She said, "Professor Park Saeng-Kwang worked with a stronger intensity due to his representation of Koreanness as a reality." Significantly, if Park Saeng-Kwang had added an independent interpretation to sustain and develop self-reliance on Korean art, Jeon Hyuck-Lim would have attempted to manifest Korean beauty by applying Western composition and simplified geometries. In this respect, both artists, Park Saeng-Kwang and Jeon Hyuck-Lim, have dedicated their lives to a common pursuit of Korean aesthetics.
Hong Young-sook has times of deep silence, enduring personal hardships like the silence in the background of Korean world history. To an artist, such stony times of silence are noble. Her poverty, marked by filial piety, is a divine gift. The silent time, as quiet as thunder, is a sacred time of communion with an eternal and infinite existence. As it is said, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit,' her impoverished filial piety is an everlasting time of empathy with existence. Her silence, pain, and loneliness are expressed in works like 'Original Tears' (early 1990s), 'Untitled Memory' (2012-2013), 'Old Story' (2013), 'Cave's Sound' (2022-2013), and 'Memorable Story' (1993-2019). These include the tears shed by the artist during her challenging studies in New York, the sounds she wanted to shout to the world, and the murky psychology she must have felt between the pure art ideality and the noisy reality of market art. She contemplates a world of illusions reflected not by the light in her eyes but by colors and dreams, the dreams of a hidden dragon. 'Winged Van Gogh' (2019) is a distinguishing work in her artistic world. Before studying abroad, she harbored a robust dream to leave behind a historical work like Van Gogh. Still, her recent challenges (even before winning the Jeon Hyuck-Lim Art Award) have led her to believe that 'the work must survive along with her.' The artist confesses, 'Van Gogh was an owner of passion incomparable in art history, unrecognized during his lifetime. This search for meaning is the starting point leading contemporary art. It crystallizes into a symbolic symbol, an undying light, for me. This commitment takes shape in 'The Undying Flame' (work in progress), promising a new artistic world.
The scholar-painter, inheriting the art vein of elegance, is quick to embrace novelty and is not confused by diversity. Reading the Korean artistic soul of Park Saeng-Kwang and Jeon Hyuck-Lim, she attempts a contemporary interpretation of Korea's historical works. She interprets the tomb murals of the Goguryeo Gangseo Great Tomb in 'Bird, Fly' (2017), empathizes with the Baekje bronze incense burner in 'Burning Form' (2017), views An Gyeon's 'Mongyu Dowon-do' from a new perspective in 'Dreaming Child' (2018), creatively looks at Shin Yun-bok's delicate 'Beauty Painting' in 'Meticulous Woman' (2018), relates to the Koryo Buddhist painting 'Water-Moon Avalokiteshvara' and 'Buddha's Recollection' (2019), and An Gyeon's 'Mongyu Dowon-Do' is reproduced in her 'Redrawn Mongyu Dowon-do' (2017). 'Meticulous Woman' can be interestingly viewed alongside Park Saeng-Kwang's 'Flower Palanquin' (1984), 'Eaves of Geumsansa' (1984), and 'Avalokiteshvara of Muuisa' (1984). The scholar-painter must be bold. One must pass through the conventional art scene's narrow gate' to leave immortal works behind. In this regard, the courageous effort of this bold painter to reimagine Korea's historical works as subjects for contemporary reinterpretation deserves careful evaluation. Thus, her works are firmly based on the art soul of elegance, namely 'spontaneity.'
The scholar-painter embraces Korea's diverse religious traditions. Her works include 'How to Gather the Universe's Qi' (2016), 'How to Gather the Universe's Qi 2' (2016), 'The Sound That Calls the Soul' (2016), 'Praying Hands' (2017), 'Following the Cross...' (2017), 'Prayer Written in Color' (2020), 'Dream of the Butterfly' (2016), 'Sturdy Hallelujah' (2016), 'Confucius' Dedication Song' (2018-2019), 'Calling the Soul' (2020), 'Redrawn Mongyu Dowon-do' (2017), 'Along with Om Mani Padme Hum' (2019), 'Smiling Buddha' (2017-8), 'Returning Mandala' (2022-2023), among others. Traditional cultural works include:'12 Zodiacs' (2018-2020), 'Turnaround Song (Watang)' (2018). 'Redrawing Still Life I' (2018), figure paintings like 'Meticulous Woman' (2018), 'Dreaming Girl' (2018), and animal paintings like 'Ha Ha Ho Ho' (2016), 'Conch Landscape' (2016). 'A Summer Bird' (2013), showing a broad world that encompasses space, sky, sea, and land. Works featuring the appearance of the Taiji and the Triple Taiji include 'Underwater Scene I' (2018), 'Underwater Scene II' (2018), 'Underwater Scene III' (2018), 'Conch Landscape' (2016), reflecting history and contemporary in 'Wings of Post-Modernism' (2017), 'Touch of Everyday Life' (undated), 'Shaking Bouquet' (2015), 'Garden Being Created' (2016), exploring the origins in 'I am...' (2015), 'In the Beginning...' (2020), considering scientific civilization in 'Cyborg Sunflower' (2016), 'Galaxy..?' (2019), among other materials. Such rough receptiveness is one characteristic of Korean thought. Being tied to school and regional connections and insisting on specific perspectives and styles are merely relics of an outdated era. From cosmic to everyday, the objects and events captured in the artist's stream of consciousness are expressed through handwork and computer work, utilizing the spirit of elegance. Above all, the artist's works as a scholar-painter are imprinted with Korea's color soul (ßäûë). Even while studying abroad, she does not rush to mimic foreign styles but uses Korean colors, i.e., the colors of elegance. Using the traditional Korean colors of the five directional colors and the three primary colors does not necessarily mean they are the colors of elegance. There are no borders in color, but even if one uses traditional colors from other countries, one must know how to express them in the colors of elegance that contain the Korean color soul.
Let's look at the Korean flag. The white areas, concentrated with light, and the black regions, where colors converge, are distributed across the four cardinal elements of heaven, earth, water, and wind. It is the birth of the universe. Above is red, and below is blue, drawing the Taiji pattern. This Taiji pattern is called the hexagram of heaven and earth in the Book of Changes. Although the artist might have yet to study the Book of Changes specifically, she even flips the hexagram of heaven and earth. She naturally paints the 'Flipped Taiji' (2021) and explains it as a work 'implying the progressive future of our society.' When the hexagram of heaven and earth is flipped, the peaceful world of earth and heaven arrives.
The artist's triple Taiji (ß²÷¼Ð¿) expresses the characteristics of Korean colors in the context of East Asia. The triple Taiji of the spiritual universe, containing the source of existence and eternal time, unfolds the space-time universe with the red and blue Taiji patterns. Works featuring the triple Taiji like 'Run, Run' (2022), 'In the Beginning...' (2020), 'Origin of the Taiji' (2019), 'Scattering Taiji' (2019), 'Freedom, Equality, Peace' (2020), 'Flipped Taiji' (2021), 'Prayer Written in Color' (2020), etc., coincide with the pinnacle of Eastern and Western thought, the Bible and the Book of Changes. The red and blue Taiji concept corresponds to the biblical Revelation: "There was a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. And He who sat there was like jasper and sardius stone in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald" (Rev 4:2-3). Byeon Chan-rin, the first to elucidate this, wonders how the editor of Revelation would have indicated this part of Revelation 4:2-3 if he had known the triple Taiji and Taiji thought. He takes the color symbolism from the expression that the shape of God seated is like jasper (blue) and sardius (red). This refers to the pattern of the Taiji. Still, since the editor of the Bible was unaware of the thought of the Book of Changes, Byeon interprets this as the reason it was recorded this way (Byeon Chan-Rin, "SunMaek Scriptures: Hanbak School," Dongyeon, 2023, 231-232, same author, "New Interpretation of Revelation," Korean Theological Research Institute, 2019, 87). However, the artist expresses this not through the text of the Bible or the hexagrams of the Book of Changes but through spiritual intuition. Isn't this typical of a scholar-painter? Clive Bell (1881-1964), who published a theory of art, said that lines, forms, and colors on the canvas inherently contain meaningful forms that resonate with aesthetic emotions, allowing the viewer to perceive the ultimate nature of reality beyond the surface appearance. He mentions this process as a catalyst for deriving a common visual denominator between the artist and viewer and for diverse and potential thinking, a meaningful art appreciation that encompasses abstract thinking rather than relying on representative elements. In this way, the Taiji serves as a visual intermediary that can be interpreted as the ultimate essence for Koreans. Moreover, the reason her works transcend the worlds of philosophical reason and pathos' emotion as spiritual art lies here. The artist inheriting the art vein expresses this as superconscious spirituality. Even if a Western painter who has yet to receive the cultural and artistic training of East Asia paints the Taiji, he cannot feel the impression of the colors of elegance that the artist intuits. Moreover, there is no need for Western painters to imitate the colors of elegance. Painters of various colors should express works that reveal their characteristics within their historical life contexts.
The world of elegance does not aim for the unity of diversity but seeks the harmony of diversity. Unity presupposes uniformity, a discriminatory and exclusive world. However, the world of elegance acknowledges diversity and pursues harmoniousness, a fractal world where the part is the whole and the whole is the part. A dramatic expression of this is 'Run, Run' (2002). A blue horse, the color of the East, emerges from behind the curtain of the hidden spiritual universe, attempting to revolutionize the old universe, with hidden yellow buried in its head, leading Koreans to shout 'Run, Run,' awakening humanity immersed in sorrow. This work, equipped with momentariness, dynamism, and timeliness, shouts to the Korean art scene that it is now 'our turn' as the endemic era approaches the end of the coronavirus era. Listen to the sound the scholar-painter wants to convey through the blue horse.
The scholar-painter, driving a quiet 'revolution,' attempts a color revolution to innovate old civilization into a new one. Green is the color of life, but the artist's green, tinged with the sorrow of black, is expressed as the color of old, dying pain. 'Song for The Death of Colors' (2014) is representative. The artist already knows. The white, the crystallization of the three lights, and the black, the hidden color of the three primary colors, are the colors of death that have lost life. In this aspect, the green symbolizing the life world expresses the painful death of not being able to live out its life as a member of the universe's life community, between old and new, eternity and moment, sacred and profane, beauty and ugliness, purity and pollution, creation and evolution. As seen in 'Together, Yet Apart...' (2019), the artist's artistic world does not aim to unify all kinds of binary division and discrimination into one. All life must realize 'Han' and mold it into 'light,' i.e., find its true face in its place, as the artist demands. So, what about the scholar-painter's interest in humanity? Let's look again at 'Flipped Taiji' (2021). Don't you see a loving and empathetic scene of a fair man and a fair woman in the Taiji pattern? The desire to achieve earth-heaven peace with the blue man of heaven's path and the red woman of earth's path, while the somewhat clearer male figure is expressed, but the female figure retains a less visible red. This is a technique of elegance accompanied by a deep understanding of 'Korean femininity.' It is not advocating the Confucian worldview of male superiority over females, nor is it adopting sharp 'feminism' from the West. The 'pure' girl and the 'profound' motherhood embrace the world and nurture the earth and the universe as mothers. Soft femininity embraces sharp masculinity. The 'feminism' of elegance embraces the sharp difference of Western 'feminism.' The world of elegance eloquently states that harmony comes first in a world of yin and yang, that is, earth-heaven peace, and that the male dominance of heaven-earth denial should not occur.
Scholar-painter Hong Young-sook is creating new Korean concepts and abstractions to express the world of elegance. It's not the Western distinction between figurative and abstract, but symbols (ßÚ, symbol) transcending figurative and abstract. In symbols, there is no original distinction between figurative and abstract. The artist always expresses his spirit (spiritual symbol) (from now on referred to as 'spirit'). Scholar-painters inheriting the art vein of elegance must escape the discrimination and distinction of the Western art scene between abstract and figurative.
The viewer must trace his spirit to communicate with the artist and know his true face. The spirit manifests to the 'I' capturing the eternal infinity because the work expresses the sound of eternity, the existence of infinity, and the reality of truth through the historical 'I.' This orientation of the artist appears in 'Dance of the Original' (2016) and 'Song of the Wind' (2020). Both works are the artist's spirits trying to overcome the historical civilization of oldness and death. It is rare for yellow to appear prominently in her works. 'Dance of the Original' depicts the throbbing life of living, dying, and reviving. It images a resurrection universe that creatively evolves from eternity to eternity, embodying life. All dying green life must live out true life even through a meaningless life of eternal recurrence, as the artist hopes. On the other hand, 'Song of the Wind' is a song of elegance (wind). It is a changing universe that lives and disappears like the wind. Green, resembling purple, is the color of true life. Hidden yellow swirls the wind throughout the universe, but it is not a storm but a gentle wind. It is the wind of life. The wind rising to the sky starts from a single root (seed). That single seed's root is human. The historical will of humans striving to ascend to eternity innovates old civilization. If light and color hold their places, a peaceful world where all life finds its place is realized. It is the art vein of elegance. The art vein of elegance leaves the spirit of elegance in artworks by the spirit of knowing the elegance. This extensive narrative explores how the scholar-painter Hong Young-sook actively engages with and transforms traditional Korean aesthetic values and philosophical concepts through her art, positioning herself as a significant figure in the continuum of Korean cultural and artistic expression.
In conclusion, the awarding of the Jeon Hyuck-Lim Art Award to Hong Young-sook, a scholar-painter who creatively inherited the art vein of elegance from Park Saeng-kwang and Jeon Hyuck-lim, is a joyous event for the Korean art scene. Although the artist was introduced to the Korean art scene due to the prestige of the Jeon Hyuck-Lim Art Award, her future artistic endeavors should be understood as bearing the responsibility to teach the Jeon Hyuck-Lim Art Award to the global art community. In this respect, the 9th Jeon Hyuck-Lim Art Award has genuinely found its rightful recipient.
The artist must creatively inherit the Korean art soul, the vein of elegance. That is, she must autonomously embrace various artistic trends and express them visually in a position that integrates and fuses the universe, history, and Korea. The artist hopes to be recognized as a major figure in the global art scene, true to the original intent of the art award, which is to highlight an artist possessing the Korean art soul. This is my humble hope.
Now, the artist must return to her usual calm. She should treasure the 'poverty' gifted by the heavens and avoid compromising with the temptation of 'capital' that corrupts within wealth. Free yourself from the restrictive atmosphere of academic ties, artistic trends, and art galleries, and engage in free creative activities. Moreover, it leaves behind many great works that abundantly incorporate infinite religiosity, philosophical reason, and a scientific future, resonating with the historical seed.
I sincerely congratulate scholar-painter Hong Young-sook on her receipt of the 9th Jeon Hyuck-Lim Art Award and her exhibition at the 10th Jeon Hyuck-Lim Art Festival.