The Legitimacy of Korean Culture & Abstract Calligraphic Painting-from 화가 황인혜

 

What are you dreaming of 0501, 92×73㎝, 2005

 

 

Inheh Hwang’s works are infused with Korean tradition and life. Her works are beautiful from a view of formative art and truly reflect the aesthetic sense of Korean people. We once had beautiful memories on our traditional lives, but now it seems to disappear, which is a pity. Inheh Hwang translates the affluent cultural heritage and reflects it in her works. The interconnection of different works must be looked into. The range of her works is wide from Korean ink paintings to semi-abstract paintings extracted from nature and to abstract calligraphic paintings. At the center of all these works are the legacy and traditional surroundings. The tradition is a spring of inspiration and a source of creation. There is a flow of time in her sentimental works, which make us have warm and positive feelings. Her contemplation arouses the gratitude for everyday lives. Her effort to meet her true self in her peaceful works of art can be found as well.

 

 

The Beginning of Calligraphies

For an artist, the memory of childhood is inseparable with the creation of art. Both always stay together. The memory becomes a factor that explains the subject matter or the motif of a work. It is likely to be found repetitively throughout her whole works. In this view, it can be said that a work of an artist is his or her experience itself. The same is true for this artist, Inheh Hwang. Interior and exterior environmental elements are the prime factors to develop her unique work of art. The trait of the place she was brought up and the relation with her family members also affected her. She was born near in Daegu, Kyungsangbuk-do and grew up surrounded by a beautiful garden with apple trees and pine trees. Her father was not only talented at calligraphies but extremely professional in poetry and paintings. It is natural for her to be influenced by her father, which brought her an opportunity to be raised in the atmosphere of humanities from her childhood.

What is important is the attitude she tried to embrace the chance and internalize it. Inheh Hwang accepted the learning opportunity given to her. She came to know the materials, brush and ink and found artistic potential in them. It goes without saying it served as a momentum for her to broaden and deepen her sight and understanding. Here the artist could meet the pictorial origin which could be found in Eastern culture. Her works have been developed in this environment, in which you can discover intellectual elements and traditional beauty of

Korea at the same time.

Calligraphy, particularly, became the nourishment for her works and future artistic activities. It was not coincidental at all that she received a prize of calligraphy at the National Art Exhibition. Yet, she did not follow the general path, writing letters. She did choose more extensive drawing rather than develop techniques or focus on letters. In other words, the relations between lines and lines, lines and shapes, or shapes and shapes beyond the traditional view are more important to her. The rhythm of lines, the light and shade of shapes, and the dynamics of brush strokes were dealt with in a boundary of paintings, which enabled her to freely make use of forms that had never been available in calligraphies. Inheh Hwang as a Korean painter acquired orthodox and exemplary learning method. She understood the nature of Korean ink and went through many years’ of humanities training with calligraphy. The change of her working style over 40 years will be observed in this solo exhibition at Seoul Arts Center.

 

Korean Landscape Paintings and Seeing Space

It was early of 1980s that Inheh Hwang worked vigorously as a painter. Her main concern at that time was landscapes, which were not a conceptual landscape but the everyday scenery we encounter in this land. She made use of a delicate and exquisite brush style particularly centered on Seoul or Kyunggi province. Mountains, trees, and houses which were scattered around the mountains, were what we could easily find around us. But most of all, she was concerned with the feeling gained from the horizontal ground and vertical trees. During this period, gentle and highly sensitive touch of brush is found. However, a slight change is observed as well. This is when she began to reveal her interest in simplifying objects and in space.

Nature developed from here became the subject of her intensive study. She came to open her eyes to the matter of ‘seeing’. That is, she found a way to focus on nature not to expand her point of view. Specially, she focused on the matter of ‘space’ created by natural objects. Finally, she came to hold a faith that ‘seeing space’ is the essence of Korean painting. This term literally means ‘an object, which is looked at, and the interspaces’. More specifically, she studied on the property of nature by the medium of leaves in her series ‘Seeing Space’ in about 1985. What she concentrated on is the space between trees. It was a sweet conversation made by the sky and leaves. It was a mysterious and marvelous experience to her. The order of the universe was not faraway but in that tiny space before her eyes. Her interest in this ｅxpression of awe, the profound beauty lasted for 7 or 8 years. Her works of this period show abundant emotion of painting along with her unique composition on the basis of existing Korean ink painting. Subtle movement of nature is dealt with here too. There is gentle rustling in the trees and the branches are on-again off-again in the canvas. She also researched into the changes in nature according to the season. In the series of <Seeing Space>, the influence of calligraphy and Korean ink painting she had dealt with got into full swing. She, in particular, represented how she could possibly handle the single object, a leaf in paintings. This series also can be an exemplary case that effectively shows the sensibility of the artist through a delicate and rhythmical movement of brush.

 

Korean ink and Human Body, Back to the Abstract Calligraphy

Inheh Hwang faced another change around the beginning of the 1990s. It was nothing less than reexamination on the possibility of letters. She tried dynamic screen split like arranging letters, human figures, and abstract landscapes in one canvas. A series of works including <Untitled> in 1993 is differentiated from earlier works in its working method. A human body is placed along with abstract Hangeul, and flowers and trees the products of nature are added. The relationship among these three elements - human bodies, letters, and abstract images - has been developed as a primary composition method of her canvas. This was also the time she seriously revealed her interest in abstract calligraphies. Her abstract calligraphic paintings give us pictorial pleasure aroused between interspaces of lines and shapes. The series <GaNaDaRa>, which is a typical work presenting abstract beauty of the brush strokes and the letters, tried to draw the maximum of aesthetic elements of Hangeul. The rhythm and the rules made by consonants and vowels, and the spaces generated between letters provided her with room for infinite imagination.

Her interest in letters has been continued until now. Looking back, the reason she was able to reach letters is deeply connected to the calligraphies she met in her early days. She went beyond the formative property of Chinese letters and turned her attention to the beauty of Hangeul. It was calligraphy work that was invited to the exhibition <The History of Letters> organized by Deutsche Technik Museum Berlin in 1995. Her plan was to show Hangeul freshly arranged. Yet, she wasn’t satisfied with the simple rearrangement and pursued more dynamic beauty of its shape. As the aesthetic sense of Korean ink paintings was her main concerns, she was able to represent her works with various forms and contents. Most of all, she had special interest in the composition of the canvas. She balanced between Hanji and charcoal which was used to leave an intentional trace. Her unartificial and natural drawing is worthy of notice. The harmony among the arrangement of Hangeul, Korean ink, and flowing lines delivers the beauties of composition and peculiar pictorial nuances.

 

Knot

Korean paper Inheh Hwang uses is another medium which tells us about our tradition. Korean paper, Hanji was a daily object and also a raw material with great potential to her from a formative point of view. Having a soft and durable texture at the same time, Hanji is an excellent object in itself. It was a material commonly seen at the windows and doors of our traditional houses. There was a time we used to make holes in the paper window with fingers. She cherishes such memories. By the late 1990s she added a device enriching the contents. That is, she introduced her individual experience extracted from her own memories into her canvas. She made knots by twisting Hanji, which reminds viewers many things. What is important is the approach to these knot buttons. The buttons didn’t just remain in her emotional memories but was used properly at her works. Colored knots can be approached as a mass or a cube of pigment. Abstractly it can possibly be a letter, or a medium that are between lines and shapes. This medium keeps its individuality and independence and also plays an eclectic role as a liaison between drawings, letters, and colored Korean ink paintings.

Through the work <GaNaDaRa> of 1998, she presented a melody of abstract calligraphy using Korean ink. Knots in her works are emotional links dwelling in the artist’s mind. Her mother’s care and touch, who taught her how to tie the knot, are integrated in it. These knots are a symbol of relationship in the human affairs. They function as objects but she gave them a special significance that they go beyond the relationship between people and lead to the one with God. The knots combine and interweave humankind and the absolute. They are the link that holds the both sides together. She wanted to develop this medium, originated from her personal perspective, into universal love for humankind.

By the beginning of the 2000s, the knots appeared vitally in her Korean ink painting. They were no longer bashful and seemed to find confidence. It rather seemed to get their position as a subject matter of a work. By this time, relation between Korean ink and colors or charcoal and knots was uncovered with the series <The Endless Love>. She spoke about the value that could be acquired when the experience got into artistic sensitivity. She rediscovered some factors such as beauty of space and beauty of composition that were always in our lives and cultures. These factors are precious memories which are being forgotten in the process of drastic modernization of our society. Inheh Hwang is restoring these elements in her works.

 

Integrated Vision with Letters

In the works of Inheh Hwang is visual comfort which is generated from pure and simple colors. She is walking through between nature, the present from God and letters, the superb product of mankind. There is abstract beauty treasured in her works, which brings viewers peace of mind. It originates from familiar colors and composition, and the combination of letters easily seen in daily life.

In her recent works, she pursues synthetic propensity with abstract calligraphy as the center. She deals with all the figures, landscapes, and abstract calligraphies in one section without dividing them. The exhibition at Galleri Nexus Kunstcenter in Denmark in 2010 demonstrated well this feature. This exhibition epitomized the direction she was heading. In addition to abstract paintings making good use of the property of Hanji, the free combination of the abstract and the figurative, three-dimensional works using Hanji as objects, and simplified figures on the basis of consonants and vowels of Hangeul are the exemplary works at the exhibition. Moreover, it was sensuous that she displayed paper knots at every strategic point.

The true subject of works of art is said to be the artist him or herself. No matter what materials and contents he or she deals with, those things are speaking of the artist eventually. She learned nature from the earth and trees and found raw materials in window frames and Hanji. She realized relatively early what kind of world Korean ink could open up. She never forgets that the environment given to her is priceless and there is love deeply involved in her surroundings. She has been in this warm and generous environment. She could develop her formative reflection sufficiently.

The key of her working is she has kept dealing with the potential of letters. Her formative experiment using Hangeul’s own beauty and shape can be regarded as her specialty. This achievement is based on the personal experience connected to the tradition. Her adventurous spirit to consistently rediscover our culture also made up the ground. She has been willing to accept trivial experience as an important one. She embraced each element and turned it into a piece of art. This attitude makes her identity. In this sense, her various forms of works are identical to her self-portrait indeed.

 

△Kam Yoon Jo Curator, Hangaram Arts Museum