Kookje Shinmun | Naesoong, by Kim Hyun Jung
The Kookje Shinmun featured Kim Hyun Jung's "Naesoong" series in its "Morning Gallery" column on March 25, 2013 (printed March 26, page 30). The article discussed her Korean paintings created by thinly layering hanji over nude figures dressed in hanbok, and introduced her solo exhibition "Kim Hyun Jung — Her Naesoong?" running through April 29 at Gallery Ain in Haeundae-gu, Busan.
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[Morning Gallery] Naesoong — by Kim Hyun Jung
A woman in an elegant, dignified hanbok lies carelessly sprawled, drawing her eyebrows — her pale thighs bared. Another woman in hanbok is absorbed in a handheld game console, and yet another eagerly eats ramen ladled onto a pot lid, cooked on a portable gas stove.
Artist Kim Hyun Jung presents Korean paintings on the theme of "naesoong," created by thinly layering hanji over nude figures. The wide skirts of the hanbok carry a certain mystique, as if hinting at some secret happening beneath them. Drawing on the elegance and secrecy that hanbok evokes, the artist satirizes the "naesoong" — coy, two-faced behavior — of women who wear elegance while acting in entirely inelegant ways.
The artist said, "Though she is dressed elegantly in hanbok, the figure's inelegant inner self is fully visible through the semi-transparent hanbok. I hope viewers who look inside will nod and smile, thinking, 'I know exactly what you're thinking.' My work isn't simply about a woman's coyness — it's a humorous expression of the universal desires common to ordinary people." The exhibition "Kim Hyun Jung — Her Naesoong?" runs through the 29th at Gallery Ain, Jung-dong, Haeundae-gu, Busan. (051) 747-2612