| The Harmony of Nature and Creating and Nurturing the pictorial world_Choi Jaehyeok Curator | |
The Harmony of Nature and Creating and Nurturing the pictorial world. Choi Jaehyeok / Curator Cho Hyun-Dong is a harmonious artist because he harmonizes the world's contradictory elements or different paintings. A harmony of landscape and still-life, a harmony of oriental techniques and western colors, a harmony of conception and non-figuration, a harmony between tradition and modernity, and a harmony of planar description, stereoscopic paintings, and the objects. Of course, this multi-faceted harmony was not achieved in a short time. The artist has been working for more than 30 years, from his first exhibition in 1987 to the present in 2020. Observation of life and Nature and constant thoughts about paintings became various symbols and were accumulated into the canvas. Flowers, plants, butterflies, and birds that appear in the paintings maximize their existence with their beautiful appearance. Geometric elements also divide space and dimensions, enabling modern interpretation. The artist has been coordinating, compromising, and managing Nature's formative language that they symbolize within the paintings. Moreover, the recent <Nature-Boundary> has gone beyond Nature's order to expand the invisible world. Therefore, to grasp the hidden meanings of the work of 〈Nature-Boundary〉, an understanding of the subjects continued from the previous work must precede. The composition of the surreal world 〈Nature-Circulation-Story〉 〈Nature-Circulation-Story〉, which began in 2001, deals with the order of the circulating Nature. There are three main characters in the paintings; plants such as flowers and trees, animals flying in the air such as butterflies and birds, and fish and shellfish such as snails and conchs. Also, the circular mother-of-pearl pieces are arranged. Butterflies are mostly hovering around flowers and coveting beauty, and conchs exist quietly in the margin of the painting. Although mother-of-pearl exists as an object, it adds sophistication without a sense of difference from painting. All combinations are natural. It looks like a scene from an ordinary landscape, but it is not real because the lives on the ground, in the sky, and the sea coexists in a painting. Also, the background of the wind-stopping grass, flowers, primary colors, and pastel tones add to the surreal atmosphere. It is the world of the artist's imagination and fantasy. The artist harmonized life elements that constituted all things in the universe and painted the order in Nature into the paintings. Moreover, through a surrealistic surface, it conveys the Nature's order in aesthetic ways. This will serve as an essential foundation for the future of his <Nature-Boundary> works. The present in the cycle of time 〈Sympathy-Collection〉 The message about the 'circulation' of Nature and life becomes relatively robust in the <Sympathy-Collection> series. In <Sympathy-Collection>, the flowers in the vase were expressed in the form of still life. Still-life was historically widespread in the Netherlands in the 17th century. Dutch painters Jan Brueghel and Balthasar van Ask often used flowers as their primary material among various stills. By capturing the moment when the flowers were in full bloom, they felt sorry for the future that would soon wither and acknowledged Nature's reason. The vases and flowers in <Sympathy-Collection> also symbolize "now" and "present." Therefore, it maximized the beauty of reality. Cho Hyun-dong's work is based on Nature's rotating logic or the oriental world view of reincarnation, but it is also in line with Vanitas's Western symbolism, which means the vainness and impermanence of life. Also, there is no floor boundary, and shadows are excluded in the background of <Sympathy-Collection>. It is premised on a surreal world in connection with the previous series of <Nature-Circulation-Story>. Cho Hyun-dong's flowers go beyond a description of beauty and lie between the harmony of the Eastern worldview and Western philosophy. Extensions of dimension 〈Nature-Boundary〉 Since 2014, the artist has expanded his artworks through the theme of 〈Nature-Boundary>. 〈Nature-Boundary〉 is a series that combines the previous elements of 〈Nature-Circulation-Story〉 and <Sympathy-Collection> while adding modern elements. The most significant difference on the surface is the emergence of geometric elements in shape; the transparent polygon sets another virtual space in the artist's surreal space. Lines meet to create facets, and facets gather to create spaces, which are based on the formative principle. However, in Cho Hyun-dong's work, the shape of a polyhedron completed by combining faces is not essential. Instead, we should pay attention to the world that each facet possesses. On some sides, flowers bloom and disappear. On another side, round mother-of-pearl loses continuity at the border and is cut off. In recent works, it is expressed in a grid pattern, or even the landscape of an ink painting comes to the surface. Each side does not exist as a fragment to form a figure but is a different world side. It also functions as a boundary across dimensions. It is not just a polyhedron. Birds and butterflies come in and out of primary color circles that exist like patterns in the background. It is like a wormhole that can be moved in dimensions. This allows the artist to extend his world outward through the sides of circles and squares rather than confining it in canvas. The polyhedron is the addition of the modeling element and the extension of the aesthetic and philosophical gaze and the formative extension's attempt. Cho Hyun-dong is an artist of harmony and an artist who creates and nurtures. The latter's dictionary definition is "the principle of Mother Nature creates and nurtures all things." The artist has been harmonizing various stories in Nature and meanings in our lives and time, focusing on flowers and life from his early works. And through his many years of work, he understood the logic of life, the order of all things in the universe. He created his world by exploring aesthetic consciousness in the order and expanding the dimensions. Eventually, Cho Hyun-dong's work gives the realization that all creations have value as beings for beauty. That is why he is the artist who harmonizes with Nature, creates and nurtures the pictorial world. |
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ARTIST Criticism
