JoongAng Ilbo | The Idol of Korean Painting… The Untold Story Behind Her ‘Elegant Hanbok Beauty’

Best Influencer | 'Idol of Korean Painting' Painter Kim Hyun Jung

Naesoong series sparked by social media, drawing in the public and opening a new path for Korean painting through corporate collaborations

Youngest-ever exhibition at the U.S. Metropolitan Museum... artistic merit proven through awards on international stages

'Idol of Korean painting' Kim Hyun Jung has risen to the ranks of world-class artists with her 'Naesoong series,' which humorously unpacks the duality of a beauty in hanbok. [Photo: painter Kim Hyun Jung]

A woman in hanbok, holding a straw like chopsticks, is about to swallow a french fry she's picked up with it. Her other hand holds a half-eaten hamburger, and on a small table in front of her sit an unwrapped hamburger, a drink, and fries. The killing point is her soulless expression and the fact that the hamburger set in front of her is enough for two people. With a hairpin in her hanbok-clad hair, the woman looks like a bored, idle 'lady of the house.' This is <Naesoong: All-Out Effort> by Kim Hyun Jung, a rising Korean painter these days.

"During an all-nighter, I ordered a hamburger set for a late-night snack. But Korean painting is similar to watercolor, so it can't get any grease on it. So I tried to eat it somehow while holding a straw, and suddenly found myself ridiculous. That's what I captured in the painting." Kim Hyun Jung said this while explaining one of the works from her signature 'Naesoong series.' Where in the world is a person whose inside and outside are perfectly transparent and identical? Painter Kim instead saw that very ordinariness as material to unpack through humor.

The Naesoong series, depicting hanbok and contemporary daily life, delivered the message of "reinterpreting Korean sentiment in the most sophisticated way," which matched the promotional strategies of companies looking to differentiate their established brand images, leading to numerous collaborations and, naturally, public recognition. Even those not well versed in the art world will likely recognize many of her works if they look them up. A representative example is the peony-flower background pattern designed for Woori Card's 'Card Basics.' Beyond that, her Korean-painting-style illustrations appear as a series on the packaging of Haitai Confectionery's Yeonyanggaeng on supermarket shelves, and her work was applied to the BI design and bridge footage for the 2019 MBC Drama Awards.

Having built recognition through this, painter Kim became the youngest Korean to hold a solo exhibition at New York's Metropolitan Museum in 2016, and the following year was selected for Forbes' 'Asia's 30 Under 30 with Influence.'

But the birth of an artist inevitably comes with an untold labor pain, and painter Kim was no exception in rising to stardom. In her school years, she graduated from Sunhwa Arts Middle and High School and entered Seoul National University's Department of Oriental Painting. She then double-majored in business administration. Looking only at her résumé, it's a textbook elite path. Seen the other way, she endured an environment from childhood accustomed to competing with fellow prodigies in the art world who shared the same goal.

"I started attending an art academy for college entrance exams from age eight. It wasn't out of some grand ambition — I just followed my older sister, who had started art early. So the sight of getting paint on my face and hands while fighting the entrance-exam war was familiar to me from a young age."

School years spent looking only at 1st place, 1st place, 1st place

Painter Kim went through a war zone of practical exams and interviews starting from her middle school entrance. Calluses and blisters on her fingers from brushwork were nothing to boast about.

"I only thought about being No. 1. Only No. 1. But in the arts, while music and dance tend to follow a structure where a born genius stays at No. 1, in fine art the rankings flip back and forth depending on the exam theme or subject matter. So there was no answer but practice."

She hadn't set out from the start to do Oriental painting. If anything, Western painting or design would have been more familiar to her. But from her first year of high school, she was told she had talent for Oriental painting, and she herself judged, in terms of sensibility and temperament, that it suited her. "I was struck by the way ink spreads into hanji and the color that seeps in over it. Ah, I thought, so this kind of art exists too."

The shock continued with the genre paintings of Korean painting masters Kim Hong-do and Shin Yun-bok. In Western painting there is a narrative technique called mise-en-scène — the composition and pose of figures, the arrangement of objects, subtly hinting at the work's narrative. Our genre paintings have a similar technique. Where Western painting can be almost suffocatingly precise, ours is a bit looser and more relaxed. That's the difference — hence there is laughter, and humor. In other words, a sense of taste and charm (unchi).

"But in my senior year, as a current student, I failed to get into Seoul National University. It was the first failure of my life."

Depression soon followed. What was hardest to bear was other people's gaze. In a field constantly ranking people, there is much envy and jealousy. Hating that, she gripped her brush even more fiercely and ultimately graduated top of her class in practical skills from Sunhwa Arts High School — but failed at the crucial stage, the entrance exam itself. She inevitably collapsed mentally. The following is what a then-20-year-old Kim confided to a psychological counselor at the time:

'I am standing barefoot on a stage covered in broken glass. Every member of the audience points a finger at me, but I have to step on it anyway and move forward.'

The following year she was admitted, as if in defiance, to Seoul National University's Department of Oriental Painting, but it took another two years to fully shake off the sense of defeat. The place where she found psychological healing was her studio. She decided to paint on the theme of human duality — people who approach with a smiling face but take off the mask and gossip behind your back; people who pretend to be refined but are anything but. "When you wear hanbok, you become demure. So I wanted to poke at that by depicting a person in hanbok doing something un-demure." In that sense, the Naesoong series was, in fact, born to criticize the very type of person painter Kim despised.

But a single remark from a visitor at her Naesoong solo exhibition made her look back at herself: "All the figures in the paintings resemble you, artist." "I painted in a half-dazed state, not caring about the appearance, but hearing that and looking closely, it was my own face. That's when I realized — Naesoong is, in fact, a confessional self-portrait. This was my own story. Once I accepted that, my heart grew lighter. From then on, I began hoping my work would come across as cheerful and enjoyable to others."

Kim Hyun Jung, <Naesoong: All-Out Effort>, ink and light color on hanji, 111x129.5cm, 2013.

The Naesoong series that exploded in popularity through social media

So did she have any regrets about choosing Korean painting? Strictly speaking, art is perceived as a hungry profession, and since art isn't food, clothing, or shelter, there are few buyers aside from a small pool of collectors. She double-majored in business administration in part to understand the art market.

"To properly study the art market, I should have gone into economics. Back then I didn't even know that much — I had no interest in anything other than art."

But that, too, was no easy path. Business administration is mostly studied through English-language textbooks, and what other students would grasp in two hours, painter Kim couldn't fully understand even after twenty straight hours of focus. On top of that, there was an odd atmosphere on campus of looking down on arts and physical-education-track students. In group projects, other team members would handle the presentation and research, while she'd be left to make the slides. Still, she held on out of sheer stubbornness. If you don't hit your study quota, you don't sleep; what you set out to do, you finish. On top of that, she couldn't afford to have people criticize her for being so obsessed with her double major that she neglected her main department.

"Even so, I managed to work out my own formula for success in the art world. Calculating the number of works by various painters held and exhibited in the world's leading museums, I found that you need to produce at least 2,000 pieces to succeed. Picasso left about 13,500, so I'm in better shape than that, but it's still not a small number."

In the end, painter Kim graduated second in her class from Seoul National University's College of Fine Arts. For that she received the Alumni Association President's Award, which she says, personally, is the achievement she's proudest of, more than any other credential.

The moment that brought the 'Naesoong series' that made painter Kim famous to public attention owed much to the ripple effect of social media (SNS). After holding a solo exhibition in Insa-dong, Jongno, following graduation, she was one day astonished to see a crowd filling a side street to capacity. She was confident in her skill, but she was a fresh graduate — in company terms, a 'trainee.' There was no way she had the fame or recognition to draw crowds, and no matter how impressive her work, Insa-dong is lined with galleries constantly holding exhibitions. Yet she found it strange that people were flocking specifically to her solo exhibition.

<Naesoong: New Ten Longevity Symbols (feat. Haitai Confectionery Yeonyanggaeng)>, ink and light color on hanji, 85x59cm, 2021. [Photo: painter Kim Hyun Jung]

Ultimate goal: establishing a foundation

Since she wasn't even wearing hanbok and, after days exhausted from the solo exhibition, looked at a glance like she might be exhibition staff, painter Kim approached one visitor and asked, "How did you come to know about this and come here?" The visitor replied, "There's an art hobby café, and a member recommended it, saying the paintings were fun, so I came."

"That's when I thought," painter Kim recalled, "the power of social media is enormous."

So she created blog and Facebook accounts and began uploading her work, eventually filling up 5,000 Facebook friends. She additionally opened a fan page, which soon passed 100,000 followers. Sensing this influence, critics gave her the nickname 'the idol of Korean painting.' Since Korean painters are conventionally imagined as older men, and she broke from that stereotype while having the ability to draw huge audiences, they saw her as the figure who could revive Korean painting, which had been perceived as a niche taste.

Kim Hyun Jung, <Naesoong: Riding Off (Horse)>, ink and light color on hanji, 127x183cm, 2015.

<Naesoong: Riding Off (Horse)> depicts a rider in hanbok striking a dynamic riding pose while galloping on horseback. It was part of a calendar illustration created when she took charge of the Korea Racing Authority's 'New Equestrian Beauty Portrait' project in 2015, for which painter Kim won a Silver award at 'Astrid,' a global award evaluating promotional content design. She has also reinterpreted Kim Hong-do's <Village School> in a contemporary version — depicting students listening to a lecture by Megastudy Group Chairman Son Joo-eun, or a figure listening to music wearing Dr. Dre headphones — all corporate collaboration pieces based on the Naesoong concept.

"Work came pouring in like crazy. I even got a request to paint a face using the eojin technique (the traditional method for portraits of kings)."

The production process is complex. To express the figures' silhouettes in her work, she photographs herself posing both nude and in hanbok, sketches this onto hanji, then applies color with ink and light coloring. Then she attaches hand-dyed hanji to the painting, which is the most labor-intensive part. Finally, with a meticulous finishing process, completing a single piece typically takes a couple of months.

"I think of my works as my own children. When one sells into a good environment, I feel relieved, like sending it off for a good adoption. Like any parent, I'd rather send it somewhere good if I can."

So her ultimate goal as a painter is to establish her own foundation. She notes that part of the reason Andy Warhol has been able to maintain his fame is that his foundation manages his works even after his death, continuously exhibiting them so they aren't forgotten by the public's attention and memory.

After the interview ended, painter Kim hurriedly packed up, saying she had to work through the night. She is holding an exhibition at Ewha Seoul Hospital from September 15 to November 17, and says she is deep in thought about programming that could lift patients' spirits. "I hope people feel even briefly cheered up after seeing my work. Even if life wears you down, I hope you can draw strength by facing the humor of everyday life."

Reporter Ahn Deok-kwan, Monthly JoongAng ahn.deokkwan@joongang.co.kr

Written by — Reporter Ahn Deok-gwan (Monthly Joongang)