Beauty of Korea

- The Korean people’s long cherished wish embodied in the moon jar reflecting the moon -

 The moon is the symbol of the light that enlightens the darkness and is considered as one of gods of heaven and earth who protect the beloved ones. In winters of our childhood, Korean mothers put a bowl of lustral water as votive offering on a crock that reflects the moon in the impenetrable darkness to pray the earnest and long cherished wishes to gods and to pray health and happiness of the whole family. The paintings Beauty of Korea represent those mothers’ deepest wishes upon the moon through moon jars. Going beyond flat paintings, objets are used to overcome the dryasdust common technique often seen in pure paintings and the diversity of the contemporary art is studied through various ways.

The traditional muntins, the moon reflected on the papers dressed on the muntins and the moon jar are represented through the matiere called foam board, from which paper can be made. The proportion, balance and the harmony that comply with the modeling and composition principles are the factors that allow the spectator to perceive the balance, order and the sense of stable coherence formed by vertical and horizontal composition. The principle which defines this beauty of form is called the principle of beauty or the aesthetic principles of form; these are the rules that beautify and harmonize the result which is made when different factors such as the shape, color, texture, volume and the space are represented on a flat.

The formative characteristic is the repetitiveness; here, the repetitiveness stands for something that repeats at regular intervals. Because the objects are regularly disposed, a continuous rhythm with visual repetitive changes are repeated; then an enchanting rhythm is born and the brightness and the darkness made by the ray of light would represent natural light and shade according to the orientation of the ray.

The object’s three-dimensional effect and its sense of volume are represented through the light and shade so that a flat painting may look to bear a three-dimensional structure. The quasi-endless repetitive work of cutting, making ribs and collages and coloring cost a long time and pain; yet this is a procedure that allows the creator to witness the harmony of yin and yang and to reach the vacuous state of mind - the emptiness of mind must be on the way to a kind of practice of asceticism. 

A space in a work means that a part of the work which is supposed to bear any object is let empty without any effect. The meditation introduced by the monochromy leads a pure spirit to the deepest place of the mind so that the spectator can enjoy a mental stability to develop any imagination upon the empty space and then to focus on unemptied spaces; as a result, a visual stream is drawn. A space in a work can literally be an omitted representation; however, when it is appropriately disposed with the creator’s remarkable expressiveness, it can bring the beauty of space through modeling composition’s beauty of moderation which exerts an enormous impact.

I will fulfill the moon jar with the people’s long cherished wish using my own original formative language of moderation and emphasis and will sing of the beauty of Korea. 

Tonight, a full moon will be bright in the night sky to strongly light the moon jar in my mind; it will fly through the long time and the memories.