CeCi | Thanks, My Hero
In CeCi's February 2015 issue feature 'Thanks, My Hero,' cultural figures wrote thank-you letters to their personal heroes. Kim Hyun Jung wrote a short letter of gratitude to hanbok designer Kim Ji-won, expressing that, as a fellow artist of the same generation, she has learned a great deal from her.
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Thanks, My Hero
There are presences in this world that words alone can't fully explain — heroes who set the direction of our lives and hand us a flash of inspiration when our work has hit a wall. Cultural figures sent in thank-you letters carrying gratitude they hadn't yet had the chance to express. Editor Jang Jeong-jin
To Kim Ji-won
Teacher, as a fellow artist living in the same era, I am always learning so much from you. Thank you.
From Kim Hyun Jung, Korean painter
My Hero Is A designer who, through hanbok, researches the social issues that arise between life and death, past and present, and the very essence of life. Given the nature of my own work — expressing in painting the nobility hanbok carries and the secrecy hidden within the layers of a skirt that seem to hold an entire universe — I find myself deliberating a great deal over how to render it. That's when her use of fresh color harmonies and unusual materials, and the way she so richly captures the color and texture of hanbok fluttering in the wind, gives me a great deal of inspiration and influence. I believe that the effort to make traditional color harmonize with a contemporary sensibility is exactly the role — and the direction — that someone carrying tradition forward ought to take.