Vogue | Hanbok Essay | In a Flower Garden | The Hanbok That Came to Me Like Magic

21st-Century Genre Painting

At twenty-one, I insisted on wearing hanbok to my cousin's wedding. In Korea, it is usually only married family members who wear hanbok. Unusual as it was, my family cheered on my quirkiness. As a child, whenever my father invited his foreign friends to our home, I would wear hanbok and present them with traditional fans and ornaments as gifts, and I think the compliments of "how pretty" I received back then stayed with me. Perhaps hanbok became my stand-in for a wish to "live a life noticed for its elegance." As time passed, I became a Korean painter who paints contemporary women in hanbok as her subject. The women in my paintings, dressed in beautiful hanbok, eat pizza or hamburgers, ride motorcycles, and play pocket billiards. Perhaps because this series, which portrays the everyday life of contemporary people together with hanbok, recalls old genre paintings, some people call me "a genre painter of the 21st century." I'm grateful for that.

Hanbok was also present in the exhibitions built around the theme of 'Naesoong.' Drawing on the elegance and modesty hanbok conveys, I wanted to express the 'naesoong' of contemporary people -- appearing gentle on the outside while being sly within -- by painting unceremonious daily life in hanbok. In the work 'Naesoong: Oops,' the ramyeon, Starbucks coffee, and luxury handbag the figure is holding represent modern, urban daily life. By crossing and contrasting the image of hanbok -- 'tradition and formality' -- with the image of these objects -- 'modernity and the everyday' -- I evoked the nature of 'naesoong.' Bringing together images that don't cross paths in time was meant to shock the conventional wisdom that 'you should do this in this situation' or 'a person like this should be like that.' Naesoong is bound to reveal itself, and I expressed this through a collage technique in which sheer hanji, through which the painted body underneath can be seen, is attached over the figure in the painting.

Hanbok is an essential formal element running through my entire body of work, but in the early days of my career, not knowing hanbok well caused me some trouble. I held my first solo exhibition in Insa-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, in 2013. A visitor asked me, "Artist, the woman in your painting is holding the hem of her skirt like a gisaeng -- is there a metaphor there?" I was flustered, not understanding the intent of the question. As it turned out, some people believed that when a hanbok skirt is wrapped counterclockwise, with the left panel covering the right and fastened behind the right hip, it signified a gisaeng's attire. Fortunately, my painting hadn't been wrong, and the visitor seemed to have been under some misunderstanding when asking the question. Still, I was embarrassed. I shouldn't know so little about the very thing I paint. That was the moment hanbok walked out of my paintings and into my life. Whenever I had outside engagements, I made sure to wear hanbok. I felt that the closer I stayed to it, the more I would come to know hanbok, and the more authenticity it would add to my work. To this day, I wear hanbok for exhibitions, lectures, and ambassador activities. Dignified hanbok draws attention wherever it is worn. Inside hanbok, I also feel a sense of reassurance -- 'I am being protected.' Even in a gathering full of strangers, wearing hanbok tends to bring smiles, goodwill, and compliments my way. Hanbok is the magic that makes me shine and protects me.

I have worn works by nearly every famous Korean hanbok designer at least once. I used to own just a single hanbok, but after wearing hanbok for almost ten years, my closet now holds about fifty of them. That is simply because there are so many beautiful hanbok in the world -- I'd like to insist it is by no means the result of extravagance.

Having kept hanbok close to me for so long, I have come to gladly enjoy its advantages as well. Hanbok relieves the stress of having to sit properly for long stretches at formal occasions. Using the skirt as a shield, I can sit cross-legged and rest my swollen legs. The generous fullness of a hanbok skirt also gives the body a sense of freedom. Hanbok has made my life simpler. When choosing a hanbok, I consider only the season, the color, and how easy it is to move in. I wear a thick hanbok when it's cold and a ramie hanbok when it's hot. For lectures, I choose colors that match the BI/CI of the host organization. For occasions requiring mobility, I wear a saenghwal hanbok with a skirt that rises above the ankle; for special stages, I wear a dress-style hanbok. Even though I used to have plenty of clothes yet nothing to wear, that is no longer the case.

The more I paint hanbok, the more I fall for its beauty. Hanbok is a fashion in itself, and it builds its own distinct formal beauty. That is why the hanbok in my paintings is indispensable -- it catches the viewer's eye while also carrying the artist's message. Above all, hanbok is elegant yet splendid, with its beautiful lines, colors, and textures. In truth, elegance and splendor rarely coexist, yet hanbok achieves both. I believe that is where the power of hanbok lies.

Kim Hyun Jung, Korean painter

Written by — Kim Hyun-jung Korean Painter (Editor: Kim Na-rang)