Dong-A Ilbo | A 21st-Century Genre Painting — Laughing Out Loud at “the Naesoong Woman in Hanbok”

A 25-year-old rising Oriental painter, Kim Hyun Jung, humorously depicts the duality of modern people

Netizens go wild… works sell out in two days

Artist Kim Hyun Jung strikes a coy pose, covering her mouth with her hand, at the exhibition "Kim Hyun Jung's Naesoong Story" held on the 10th at Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul Arts Center, Seocho-dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul. Behind her are works in which she painted herself as the model. All 13 of the artist's exhibited works were popular enough to sell out within two days. Photo by reporter Byun Young-wook, cut@donga.com

In the "Oriental painting," a young woman dressed elegantly in red hanbok sits on the floor eating ramen from a pot. Her chopstick-wielding gaze is fixed on a Louis Vuitton handbag and a Starbucks coffee cup on one side of the room. This work, pairing "cheap ramen" with "expensive luxury goods" in ironic contrast, has become a sensation, garnering around 42,000 likes on a humor page on the social networking service Facebook.

The work has been read as satirizing some vanity-driven Korean women (colloquially called "kimchi-nyeo"). Netizens have expressed agreement, saying it humorously captures the distorted desire of some women who scrimp on food, even eating ramen, in order to afford luxury goods and expensive coffee.

As male sympathy for the piece spread, some women responded with displeasure. One woman, surnamed Eom, objected, saying, "Don't drag and criticize all Korean women as if they're all kimchi-nyeo based on some women's behavior." The humor page that shared the painting received around 800 comments as men and women debated the issue.

"Acha (我差)/oops." By Kim Hyun Jung (2012).

The artist behind the controversial work "Acha (我差)" is Kim Hyun Jung (25, female), who graduated second in her class from Seoul National University's Department of Oriental Painting last year. Meeting with a Dong-A Ilbo reporter on the 10th at the Seoul Arts Center in Seocho-dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul, Kim said, "I titled it using the characters 'a' (我, meaning 'self') and 'cha' (差, meaning 'falling short'), to express the aspect of modern people who appear perfect on the outside but are lacking within," adding, "By showing a figure wearing hanbok, the most elegant of clothing, while behaving in the least elegant way, I wanted to humorously express the duality of human nature."

The woman in hanbok in this work is the artist herself. She said with a laugh, "During my college years, I wanted to express in a painting the hypocrisy of people who praise you to your face but criticize you behind your back. But then I realized I had that same trait myself, and that's how I came to use myself as the model for my work."

Kim has mainly created works infused with humor, such as a woman elegantly dressed in hanbok eating McDonald's fries using two straws as chopsticks, or a woman whose shoe slips off in surprise while carrying an armful of shopping bags. She paints the woman in the nude first, then dresses her in hanbok using a collage technique with materials such as hanji, so that the woman's bare skin is visible beneath. "Even someone who looks different on the outside than on the inside ultimately reveals their true feelings — that's the message I wanted to convey," she explained.

Kim opened a solo corner titled "Kim Hyun Jung's Naesoong Series" as part of "Kim Gwajang's Day at the Exhibition," a joint exhibition by 68 artists held June 6–13 at the Seoul Arts Center, and set a record by selling all 13 of her exhibited works within just two days — an achievement described as "complete sell-out." Prices ranged from 400,000 to 2.5 million won per piece. In an art world that tends to value seniority, a complete sell-out by a 25-year-old female Oriental painter is an unusual feat.

Reporter Jo Dong-ju djc@donga.com

Written by — Reporter Cho Dong-ju