The Voice of Nature
Review by Kang Goowon (Vergil America art critic)
August 2010
"What flower has been able to bloom without being shaken by the wind? What flower can bloom without being rained upon? A flower's petals are only able to unfold after the wind and
rain has passed. What life continues without periods of rain?"
-Do Jong Whan
Jung Hi Han has opted to use black and white tones to convey the struggle and pain of the outcast and abandoned youth, youth who have given their lives to substance abuse. By reintroducing color into her latest works, she desires to share the light and hope that she sees for their future. I hope that as you view and interpret her work, you can gain deeper insight
having had this background knowledge
Color - Physical Healing
During this process, Jung Hi Han has placed herself in the middle of the youth's struggle. This process has combined the hearts and minds of the youth as well as her own. As she deliberately applied their hardship to her own life, she used her artwork to express her process. Two years ago, when her daughter went off to college, she and her husband had time to travel to Santorini, Greece. While she was there she rediscovered the colors she had lost during her attempt to more deeply understand the suffering of the youth. Perhaps in experiencing the purity and primitive nature of the various hues of the flowers that surrounded her, she was awakened to the longing within her to use color in her artwork again.
The long-abandoned colors naturally, and gladly, found themselves on the blank canvases. It is
almost as if her physical ailments were cured as a result of this reemergence of vibrance.
Unraveling the Canvas
For 10 years, while in America, Jung Hi Han has wrestled with abstraction, using mainly black
and white paints. While creating new works, she carefully intertwines the blank canvas with various depths of paints and mixed media including ropes, wrinkled panels, wood pieces, horseshoe crabs and a mix of other unexpected found objects. Upon seeing her work, I got the sense that her art is an expression of how to escape the absurd complexity of our society, she offers a solution to the discord in her own way. Through experiencing her work, one can feel a powerful sense of liberty and release from the pressures and hardships of societal life. However, in taking part in this strenuous process of depicting suffering, Jung Hi Han has endured utilizing the dramatic eastern strokes of calligraphy and she has intertwined the two worlds to create
a cohesive artistic expression. Her work blurs the line that separates our common concepts of western versus eastern. Instead of exclusively connecting the eastern tradition with philosophy and the western tradition with materialism, Jung Hi Han has used her art to bridge the gap and thereby created something new altogether.
The Four Seasons Freely Depicted
Jung Hi Han has depicted aspects of nature, such as the four seasons, in a way that naturally flows out of her, void of mental limitations and rich with heartfelt absentmindedness. This absentmindedness is free flowing, unhindered and pure. She has reached this place by emptying herself of the critical, limiting voices of her mind and body. In doing so she has become completely filled with what she needs to express herself. For instance, one might view a single tree in her painting as being lonely or sad. However, it is as if she has found this tree that was once lost or in hiding and has used her painting to illuminate its beautiful existence. Now the newly found trees have become exposed and they are able to bear fruit and flowers. To create visual and tangible depth in her paintings she undergoes a repetitive and extensive process of building a strong foundation above the blank canvas. She creates this firm background by applying various levels and textures of paint on top of each other. This process is cyclical in nature much like the gradual and natural progression we see as each season moves into the next.
Physical and mental pain/ailments that only ended 2 years ago.
By tapping into western art influence through the use of ropes, horseshoe crabs, sand, and found objects from nature (among other things), as well as utilizing the dramatic eastern
strokes of calligraphy, she has intertwined the two worlds to create a cohesive artistic expression. Her work blurs the line that separates our common concepts of western versus eastern. Instead of exclusively connecting the eastern tradition with philosophy and the western tradition with materialism, Jung Hi Han has used her art to bridge the gap and thereby created something new altogether. By using her own mix of disparate influences, her artwork remains true to abstraction, and yet simultaneously moves past it. She draws us into her paintings of spring with her color and depiction of trees and flowers, but it is in the subtleties that one can identify the figures as such. Moreover, her complex imagery can easily be viewed as being natural. Thus, in her uniquely organic depictions the walls of abstraction and shape are eliminated. While viewing her work I felt dance-like movements and sensed joyful sounds flowing across the paintings. The sensation shifted, as sometimes I experienced flowers, at other times trees, wind, the ocean, and even the forest. Therefore, the poetic and metaphoric sensitivity of her work exudes a story of home. In the spacious parts of her works, the viewer is encouraged to take part in a personal story-sharing process. Jung Hi Han's story explores a long journey from Korea to France, Sweden and America. It is through this life path that she discovered her interpretation of how the western and eastern could be combined, as she encountered lines, colors, and finally, the beauty of space. As a result of her encounter with nature in Santorini she has used her art to show her attitude and newfound hope.
I hope we can all hear and feel the Voice of Nature