87-year-old artist Ha Chong-hyun refuses to take a break

Arts & Design

Published: 21 Feb. 2022, 15:08 Updated: 21 Feb. 2022, 17:52

87-year-old artist Ha Chong-hyun refuses to take a break

″Post-Conjunction 21-301″(2021) by Ha Chong-hyun on view at Kukje Gallery as part of the solo show of the dansaekhwa master. [MOON SO-YOUNG]

The latest works by 87-year-old artist Ha Chong-hyun, now on view at the K1 space of Kukje Gallery in central Seoul, are very colorful, whereas the masters of dansaekhwa, or Korean monochrome paintings, used a palette of browns, greys and whites in the past.

Among Ha’s new works on view, “Post-Conjunction 21-301” and “Post-Conjunction 21-307,” created last year, are varicolored paintings dominated by pink and bright red colors respectively. In the harmony of pink, red, purple, yellow and other colors, they seem to celebrate joy of life. In addition, their hues and texture, different from those in the artist’s signature paintings, show the artist’s ongoing experiment with color and material.

“I have been painting all my life without a break,” the artist told the press in a preview of his solo show that takes place across the K1, K2 and K3 spaces of Kukje Gallery last Tuesday. “Most of my contemporary artists passed away or, if alive, quit painting. Heaven has given me the strength to keep on painting. It means I still have work to do and have to do something new.”

According to the gallery, for the “Post-Conjunction” series, the artist begins with cutting thin wooden panels into strips and wrapping each strip with colored canvas. The artist then aligns these thin wooden strips within a frame. After placing one strip, he puts oil paint underneath or on the strip’s edges before placing the next strip. He repeats this process and then paints between the wooden strips that are pushed forward to the surface. The artist sometimes scratches the paint pushed to the surface with a tool “in order to amplify the dynamics of the pictorial plane,” the gallery said.

″Conjunction″ series by Ha Chong-hyun on view at Kukje Gallery as part of the solo show of the dansaekhwa master. [KUKJE GALLERY]

The series follows his “Conjunction” series, which he began in the 1970s and brought his fame. For the series, he uses a labor-intensive technique which he calls “bae-ap-beob.” First he thickly applies oil paint on the back of a sackcloth canvas and then presses the paint so that it is pushed from the back to the front through the coarse weave of sackcloth. Then he paints on the front of the sackcloth canvas.

The “Conjunction” paintings are also on view in his solo show. Those created in recent years are hanging in K2 and those created in the 1990s and early 2000s are in K3.

Artist Ha Chong-hyun at Kukje Gallery last Tuesday. [MOON SO-YOUNG]

“When I was studying art, it was not long after the Korean War (1950-53) ended,” the artist explained. “So the canvases were so expensive. I recalled artist Lee Jung-seob painted on the foil linings of cigarette packs and decided to paint on materials other than canvas. I began to try sack cloth. However, the weave was so coarse that I couldn't draw a picture on it. Then, I had the idea of applying paint on the back and pushing it forward.”

According to Kukje, Ha will hold a large scale retrospective with the nonprofit Instituzione Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice from April 21 to August 24, 2022, at the historical Palazzetto Tito during the Venice Biennale season which the city hosts every three years.

The solo show at Kukje will run through March 13. Admission is free. For details, visit www.kukjegallery.com

BY MOON SO-YOUNG [moon.soyoung@joongang.co.kr]