Financial News | Life Is Visible in the Paintings … “I’ve Captured the Worries of Being in My Thirties”

[fn This Person] Life Is Visible in the Paintings ... "I've Captured the Worries of Being in My Thirties"

Reporter Kim Moon-hee

Financial News, published 2019.11.04 17:23

Young Korean painter Kim Hyun Jung, who led the popularization of Korean painting, beloved for her distinctive technique and humor — exhibits works parodying world-famous paintings in her solo show on the theme of 'marrying age'

The woman in the painting, with her hair neatly tied in a low bun, wearing a sheer hanbok skirt that reveals just a hint of what's beneath, and a pouty expression, has returned — now "a tray of eggs, at marrying age."

Korean painter Kim Hyun Jung (30) is regarded as one of the young painters who, at a young age, has led the popularization of Korean painting by creating work with techniques and humor uniquely her own.

Named alongside figure skater Kim Yuna in Forbes' 2017 list of the most influential 30 people under 30 in Asia, artist Kim has consistently generated buzz by depicting scenes that could happen in modern everyday life, wittily rendered in Korean painting, with figures dressed in elegant hanbok.

She continues collaborations with a number of companies and organizations, including LG Household & Health Care, IBK Industrial Bank of Korea, and the Korea Racing Authority. In particular, Woori Card's 'Card-the-Essentials' series, which printed her work onto credit cards last year, is on the verge of surpassing 5 million cards issued.

The hanbok in Kim's paintings is expressed through a combination of Western-style collage and Eastern-style ink-and-light-color wash painting. "Rendering the embroidery on the hanbok uses the technique once used for royal portraits — I went to find a craftsman to learn that part separately, and I also went through a separate process of learning to dye hanji from a dyeing craftsman. It's like an assembled composite piece." To achieve vivid color on hanji, Kim applies a layer of color, then works on another painting while it dries, sometimes working on up to six canvases simultaneously.

Kim recently held a solo exhibition under the theme 'A Tray of Eggs, Marrying Age.'

Having reached thirty, the age at which society expects marriage, Kim expressed the worries she must face when confronting the new roles of someone's wife, daughter-in-law, and mother, through parodies of Disney works and world-famous paintings. "Just looking at the paintings, it feels like you can see my life. Since I paint mainly about my everyday life, as I found myself thinking about marriage, I ended up capturing the life that follows marriage, from preparing for it all the way to the war of childrearing."

Her 'Thinking Bride,' a parody of Rodin's 'The Thinker,' depicts a bride sitting atop a mother-of-pearl inlaid box, lost in thought while holding the traditional marriage documents (sajudanja) in her hand. In 'Welcome to In-Law World,' a parody of Munch's 'The Scream,' the figure screams with her mother-in-law and sister-in-law behind her, while 'Exhaustion,' which embodies Michelangelo's 'Pietà' — in which the Virgin Mary cradles the body of Jesus in grief — shows the present-day bride, hair in tight curls and hands in rubber gloves, looking down at her exhausted future self, collapsed from fatigue.

For someone who spent her twenties busier than most, not only painting but also holding exhibitions, giving lectures, and doing volunteer work, what will her thirties look like?

"Since I've been painting works that are like a diary, I don't really know how it'll change going forward. I don't want to calculate things — I think I like doing things honestly, so if I end up getting married, I'll probably end up depicting life after marriage, or childrearing." Just as her mother says, "my only wish this year is for my daughter to get married," let's hope good news comes her way soon too.

gloriakim@fnnews.com, Reporter Kim Moon-hee

Written by — Reporter Kim Mun-hui