YEOUBI AND POETIC ABSTRACTION MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS MAY 2020 - ScholarSpace

YEOUBI AND POETIC ABSTRACTION

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIʻI AT

  MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

                           MASTER OF FINE ARTS

                                     IN

                                STUDIO ART

                                  MAY 2020

                                     By

                              Mary Taehee Kim

                              Thesis Committee

                          Debra Drexler, Chairperson

                                 Kate Lingley

                              Brad Evan Taylor

© 2020
  Mary Taehee Kim
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

         2

PREFACE

       This paper is dedicated to my beloved family, mom, dad, and sister. I sincerely

appreciate your whole-hearted support of my painting since 2008, the year I started

studying art. I could finish this three-year journey of a Masters of Fine Arts thanks to of

your devoted love, sincere advice, and full support. This paper is the starting point of my

journey as a professional artist. I hope you can enjoy my future paintings without worrying.

Words are not enough to express my gratitude.

       Love you always.

                                             3

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

       I express my full, sincere appreciation to the following people. Words are not

enough to express the depth of my gratitude.

       Thank you to my graduate thesis committee, Professor Debra Drexler, Professor

Kate Lingley, and Professor Brad Evan Taylor, who fully supported and directed me in

completing this three-year journey in a Master of Fine Arts. I cannot imagine moving up

one more step as a professional contemporary artist without your help. I appreciate your

patience and effort to break through my own hard shell to move me on to the next step.

       Thank you to Professor Shawn Spangler for being my Core Review Committee

during my first and second year of this Master of Fine Arts program. I appreciate your

efforts to make me think deeply about my paintings.

       Thank you to the all faculty and staff of the Department of Art and Art History at the

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. I sincerely appreciate you supporting me in adjusting to

this new environment and in becoming a more mature painter than when I entered this

program.

       Thank you to Professor Tim Kennedy and Professor Michiko Itatani who helped and

encouraged me to become an artist since 2013.

       Thank you to Dr. Li Lundin and Dr. Ray Burghardt and the members of the Society of

Asian Art in Hawaiʻi.

       Thank you to the East West Center community for giving me a safe and fun place to

live in Hawai’i.

                                               4

Thank you to my writing tutor, Bonnie Fox, for helping me express my ideas clearly

on paper.

      And last but not least, thank you to my family and friends for your unending

support.

                                          5

ABSTRACT

       My concept of poetic abstraction combines Sijo (a distinctive Korean poem format),

the Korean traditional color schemes of Oh Bang Saeg and Oh Gan Saeg, and the concept of

Han (the Korean interpretation of a historically particular, innate bittersweet sorrow

emotion). To better understand the definition of Han and also new interpretations of Han

in modern Korean society, it is necessary to look into Korean history. The idea of Han was

developed from a long history of invasions into Korea from surrounding countries. The

current manifestation of Han in Korean people has changed to reflect individual struggles

rather than nationwide problems. I tried to embody Han on canvas with the color white to

represent yeo back ui mi, the beauty of blank and negative space. My paintings are based on

the Korean folktale metaphor, Yeoubi, which is a phenomenon in nature usually called ‘sun

showers’ in English. The subject matter of ‘rain’ is indicative of the influence the various

rain phenomena of Hawaiʻi has had on my artwork.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE                                  3

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS                          4

ABSTRACT                                 6

Table OF CONTENTS                        7

LIST OF PLATES                           8

COLOR PALETTE TEMPLATE                   9

INTRODUCTION                             10

SIJO                                     12

OH BANG SAEG and OH GAN SAEG             15

HAN                                      17

CURRENT ART TREANDS in KOREA             21

CONCLUSION                               23

BIBLIOGRAPHY                             26

PLATES OF ART WORK                       28

                               7

LIST OF PLATES

Page 9    [Fig. 1] Color Palette Template: Oh Bang Saeg

Page 9    [Fig. 2] Color Palette Template: Oh Gan Saeg

Page 28   [Fig. 3] Ggot Bi, Acrylic on Canvas, 48 x 48 inches, 2020

Page 29   [Fig. 4] Jak Dal Bi, Acrylic on Canvas, 60 x 60 inches, 2020

Page 30   [Fig. 5] Yeon U, Acrylic on Canvas, 72 x 54 inches, 2020

Page 31   [Fig. 6] Ut Bi, Acrylic on Canvas, 60 x 60 inches, 2020

Page 32   [Fig. 7] Lee Seul Bi, Acrylic on Canvas, 72 x 72 inches, 2020

Page 33   [Fig. 8 (a) ] The Front Thesis Exhibition Installation

                   (Korea Traditional Folding Screen Format)

Page 34   [Fig. 8 (b) ] The Back Thesis Exhibition Installation

                   (Horizontal scroll Format)

Page 35   [Fig. 9] Example Painting of Lee Jung Seob

                   (Title : Ox)

Page 36   [Fig. 10] Example Painting of Park Su Geun

                   (Title : On the Way Back Home)

Page 37   [Fig. 11] Example Painting of Cheon Kyeong Ja

                  (Title : Loneliness)

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COLOR PALETTE TEMPLATE

          9

INTRODUCTION

          In Korean, the phenomenon known as ‘sun showers’, where rain is coming down

while the sun is still shining, is referred to as Yeoubi. Breaking the word down, Yeou means

‘fox’ and Bi means ‘rain.’ The origin of this name is from one of the traditional Korean

folktales depicting a bittersweet love, also called Yeoubi. In the story, a cloud fell in love

with a fox. However, this fox got married to a tiger, and this happened on a day when the

sun was shining brightly. When the cloud saw the fox’s wedding, he cried for he could not

marry the fox himself and was thus left with his unrequited love. The cloud’s teardrops

then turned into rain in the human world, however, it was still a clear, cloud-less day. The

cloud quickly stopped crying, however, because he soon hoped the fox would have a bright

future, even if it were without him. This story then spawned the concept of Yeoubi, a short

sun shower.

          The folktale, Yeoubi, is about an unrequited love that is ultimately selfless, where the

cloud loves without being possessive, and in the end releases their love. For Korean people,

however, the main emotional themes seem to relate to nostalgia more strongly, along with

the sorrow, the emotional relinquishment, and the feelings that come with wishing

someone future luck and happiness1. The concept of Yeoubi is not typically portrayed in the

fine arts in Korea, but it is used in Korean popular culture to depict the emotions of

bittersweet or unrequited love through the illustrations in children’s books, and

additionally, in pop music or in independent films. For example, there are three Korean pop

songs explicitly about Yeoubi by pop artists COOL, J-Walk, and Lee Sun Hee. The poetic

1 The word ‘happiness’ is defined as satisfaction and delight within ordinary life. ‘Happiness’ is defined more holistically
as appreciating the preciousness of the little things in life.

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narrator of each song relates their current unrequited love and their emotions of nostalgia

to the situation of the cloud. The songs’ title, Yeoubi, explicitly indicates that the song is

based on the folktale since the narrator in the lyrics is a human being. The independent film

Yeoubi (2006)2 also uses the poetic concept of folktale but as a metaphor for a queer-coded,

unrequited love that cannot be accepted or exist easily in a conservative Korean society. As

a painter, I believe that the cloud’s nostalgic emotions along with his deep sorrow (like the

metaphor in the songs or movie) are at the core of the origin of Han, and as a result, my

current works uses Yeoubi as this metaphor.

         In my prior work, I often paid careful attention to my surroundings and experiences.

Before moving to Hawaiʻi, I painted landscapes in winter, a specific season, through poetic

abstraction. I did not pick any specific natural phenomenon, since the traditional Korean

outlook on nature is that they should simply accept what nature gives them and embrace

this as the mirror of their state of mind (Curtis, 2013). Since moving to Hawaiʻi, however, I

have been surrounded by new natural phenomena, and this has been especially

inspirational. The rain in Hawaiʻi, particularly the frequent sun showers, have inspired my

desire to engage with the idea of Yeoubi and so I created new ways of conceptualizing it,

which, in turn, has added clarity and focus to my paintings as I have been developing my

artistic style, which I have named poetic abstraction.

         Poetic abstraction is a term I coined for a style of contemporary abstract painting

which conceptually allows me to break from tradition and the past, to then recognize the

present, and thus gain the power to move on to the future. Through the color strategies, I

2 English Title: A Passing Rain

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combine Hans Hofmann’s theory of push-pull3, with Korea’s traditional colors and the

beauty of negative space, yeo back ui mi. Poetic abstraction does not show political or social

messages directly. Specifically, my work attempts to meet this broader aim of poetic

abstraction, by exploring the concept of Han, or an expression of bittersweet sorrow that is

seated deeply in the historical and cultural consciousness of the Korean people, through the

metaphor of Yeoubi. I do this through utilizing Oh Bang Saeg [Fig. 1] and Oh Gan Saeg

[Fig.2], which are Korean traditional color schemes, and which I combine using multiple

layers of luminous color via a watery application of paints. In utilizing these color schemes

to expand upon Han and Yeoubi, I take the following two approaches. First, I take the

aesthetic values of Korean tradition, such as Han and Korea’s traditional color schemes,

which stems from my personal experiences moving between Seoul, the capital of

progression and modernity, and Andong, the center of traditional spirit and values of

Korea. Second, I examine the process of experiencing the bittersweet emotions associated

with Han in the creation of each piece.

                                                          SIJO

         My conceptualization of poetic abstraction does not mean creating an actual poem

with a painting but rather indicates the concept of ‘poetic’ existentially in the sense that the

artwork itself must engage with poetic elements such as metaphor in depicting rain. The

‘poetic’ in ‘poetic abstraction’ refers to the particular history and characteristics of Korean

poetry, or Sijo. This is a unique Korean traditional verse style where the subject matter is

3 Push-pull is a painting and drawing technique that creates the illusion of space, depth, and movement abstractly by
using color and shape.

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unconstrained within a restricted format (McCANN, 1976). Sijo developed during the Go

Ryeo Dynasty (918 – 1392), flourished during the Jo Seon Dynasty (1392 – 1910), and has

continued to be utilized in the contemporary period. Until the Go Ryeo dynasty, only the

noble classes were literate, but after King Sejong invented Hangul, or the Korean alphabet,

in 1443, officially announcing it in 1446, it is commonly known that literacy began to

spread throughout the whole social system, from the lowest slave to the highest noble,

irrespective of gender. This expansion of literacy brought about by Hangul not only enabled

all social classes to begin reading, but to compose their own literature and Sijo as well,

popularizing and disseminating the literary form. The unique characteristics of Hangul

made wide literacy possible, in that based on phonetic research, the consonants are

scientifically easy to read, write, sound out, and memorize because they are based on the

shapes of the speech organs that produce them (Kang, 1995).

       Likewise, Sijo became a popular art form and was widely used in society due to

historical changes in the Korean script system. Thus the goal of my paintings is also to

make traditionally ‘high-class’ fine art widely accessible in a similar way, while focusing

more intently on how Sijo may often contain multiple meanings that are accessible to

different readers and can contain a range of subject matter pulling from a multitude of

topics, ranging from love stories to current political issues. Sijo, along with other types of

Korean poetry, tend to use the concept of a love letter as a metaphor to hide political

messages, so this type of formatted poem is a good mirror for the viewer’s current

emotions or interests. Thanks to the properties of this restrictive format with an open-

ended topic, it provides a good foundation for a painting style, which is restricted by canvas

frame and painting methods while being open-ended in its interpretation.

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My Painting, Ggot Bi [Fig.3], is a visual example of the reflective metaphor structure

imbedded into Sijo. Ggot Bi depicts rain falling like petals, or petals falling like rain. This is

a visual metaphor for Sijo such as in Dan Sim Ga, one of the most well-known Sijo. This Sijo

is about a sincere, whole-hearted devotion to the narrator’s beloved, but it was created in a

period of regime change, the Go Ryeo Dynasty to the Jo Seon Dynasty. Thus connotative

meaning can thus be interpreted as a steadfast loyalty to the current, but the last king of the

Go Ryeo Dynasty. This steadfast loyalty to the last king can then be seen as a reflection for a

steadfast love for one’s beloved. The various red colors in Ggot Bi were chosen as the

dominant color palette in this painting to express the Fox on her wedding day in Yeoubi.

       The color red is the main color in traditional Korean wedding dresses. The painting

also has pink and yellow ocher wash strokes in the background. The colors of blue and

green offer the viewers’ eye respite from soft pink yet vibrant red. Another meaning

included is the in decorations of the traditional wedding dress. The origin of this practice

was that red was the color reserved for the queen, and an ordinary bride could wear this

stunning dress in her wedding day only. The color, red, also opens to multiple

interpretations like a Sijo poem. The color of red often suggests passion or danger (Jo,

2017); also it is one of the major colors of sunset or sunrise in Hawaiʻi. There are multiple

ways to interpret this specific color, however, because red has further meanings in Korean

society. Red is another symbol of ideological dispute between democracy and communism

in modern and contemporary Korean society After the Japanese Colonial period, Korea

faced the Korean War, which is described commonly as the tragedy of fratricidal war in

Korea. This particular war is in the state of armistice still. From the Korean War, the

ideological dispute still spreads enormous conflict into generations. My grandparents’

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generation was forced to choose between democracy and communism to live, therefore, if

they see the color of red, there is the chance for them to recall the fear of communism (Jo,

2017). My parents’ generation experienced democratic movement against military regime,

therefore, the color of red might remind them of the fight (Jo, 2017).

                             OH BANG SAEG and OH GAN SAEG

       Poetic abstraction as I practice it grows out of a vibrant painterly process based on

the aesthetic values of the Korean traditional colors, Oh Bang Saeg [Fig.1] or the ‘five

cardinal colors’ and Oh Gan Saeg [Fig.2] or the ‘five intermediary colors.’ It also relies on

the concept of poetic space, yeo baek ui mi, translated as the beauty of blank space, in

traditional East Asian paintings. Since coming to Hawaiʻi, the new colors that have come

into my paintings have been the pastel tones of Oh Gan Saeg, rather than the previous Oh

Bang Saeg. Through this development in my work, I have found that Korean secondary

traditional colors combined with the pastel colors of Hawaiʻi create a peaceful tension with

the use of a transparent wash technique and the balancing of hard and soft-edged

geometric forms.

       Oh Bang Saeg and Oh Gan Saeg are colors that can be found easily in Korea’s

traditions and daily-life such as in palaces, temples, Hanbok (traditional clothes), and even

food (especially Bibimbap). The color palette I use in my work is derived from Oh Bang

Saeg, which refers to Korea’s five traditional colors: black, yellow ocher, white, navy, and

red. These colors are based on Yin and Yang and the Five Element Theory in East Asian

philosophy, which constitutes the concept of balance and harmony within the universe and

are foundational aspects of East Asian philosophy, and each color contains a particular

                                             15

cardinal direction and meaning. Yellow represents the middle and the center of universe;

black symbolizes the North, winter and wisdom; navy represents the East, spring, and the

power to repel bad luck and bad spirits. The color red stands for the South, summer, birth,

creation, passion and love or affection. White represents the west, autumn, truth, life,

innocence and purity (Jo, 2017). Oh Gan Saeg refers to the secondary colors. The word ‘Gan’

means ‘in between.’ Green (light permanent green) is in between navy and yellow. Light

blue is between white and navy. Yellow ocher is between black and yellow. Maroon is

between black and red. Persimmon orange is between red and white.

       In the painting, Jak Dal Bi [Fig.4], which references a heavy torrential rain in Korean,

the dominant colors are blue, green, and yellow, with a minor use of white and these colors

indicates the Fox’s wedding venue, forest. Blue and green are layering each other to

express the relationship of these colors in Korean: coming from the Chinese character Cho (

草), which means grass, and the usage of ‘blue’ for describing green quite often such as

saying paran bul (blue light) for the green traffic light signal (Jo, 2017). Yellow has many

meanings such as funny, bright, warm, cute, happy, and so on (Jo, 2017), however, I

embodied yellow as jealousy, a common association with yellow in Korea (Jo, 2017), for

this painting to depict the moment when the cloud sees the fox’s wedding for the first time.

The cloud felt strongly jealous of the tiger but also felt helpless because he has nothing he

could do to change the situation.

       The painting, Yeon U [Fig.5], a misty foggy rain, mainly consists of dark Oh Gan Saeg

colors such as dark purple, green, and orange. The combination of three dark colors is

inspired by the post-sunset dark sky of Hawaiʻi, in the moments right before it becomes a

dark navy night sky. On the bottom, there are smooth curved lines in an earthy dark purple.

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These depict the splashes and ripples made by rain on rivers or oceans. With those lines

and dark colors, I depict the moment in which the cloud in the story disgorges its negative

emotions. The cloud became calm after crying, but the scars left in the mind remained. On

the edge of the right side of the middle, there is a white dash, which appears to be shining

when the viewer looks from far away; however, it becomes a matte surface when one looks

closer. I wanted to depict the white-gray clouds, which shine in the night through the bright

yet matte white. The matte surface depicts the dull reality and the shining appearance

depicts the shiny ideal while dealing with problems, which are invisible to others. This is

aptly described in a quote from Charlie Chaplin commonly used in Korea: Life is a tragedy

when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long shot. The dark color combinations indicate the

cloud’s personal struggles. However, I ultimately want to deliver the positive message to

the viewers expressing the light that comes at the end of a struggle.

                                            HAN

       The subtle style of poetic abstraction, as applied in traditional East Asian paintings

is the contemporary understanding of poetic space, or the Korean yeo baek ui mi, which

translates ‘the beauty of blank, negative space.’ The poetic space, or white space, which is

also used in my own work, allows for an emotional connection between the painting and

the audience through the delicate movement between positive and negative spaces. The

color, white, in the poetic abstraction of my paintings can be explained in terms of Han,

which is a historically resonant emotion, akin to bittersweet sorrow, and is a foundational

component of Korean history and culture.

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Historically Korea was invaded by many foreign countries, predominantly China and

Japan. Korea was devastated by frequent wars throughout its history, with many of its

cultural components drastically and forcefully altered, or even lost forever. For certain

periods, Korean women were annually sent to the victor country as a “contribution” or

“tribute” annually. Even today, due to power dynamics and diplomatic obligations, the

Korean government cannot always express or exert its own will. The Korean government

always has dealt with various power games at once with many countries. This is especially

true of the period of Japanese Imperial Rule (1910 – 1945), the legacy of which is still

problematizing political issues, such as competing political and jurisdictional claims, anti-

Korean demonstrations, and difference of opinions over appropriate apologies and

compensation, especially regarding “comfort women” (sexual slaves) (Kim, 2019). Debates

over forced labor during the Japanese colonial period has recently led to the voluntary

boycott of Japanese companies and their products, as well as boycotts on travel to Japan

(Jeon, 2019). Many of these contemporary conflicts have ties to Japan’s Ethnic

Extermination Policy during World War II, which specifically targeted Koreans. These

collective experiences have in turn conjured a collective emotional historical trauma (Kim,

2019). Han, then, can be a vehicle through which succeeding generations grasp, internalize,

and begin to express emotional, historical trauma, as has been the case across generations

throughout Korean history. My visualized image of Han was a heavy rain smattered with

glimpses of lights in the painting.

       The painting, Ut Bi [Fig. 6], indicates the phenomenon that a heavy rain is clearing

slowly. The top of the painting has a translucent dark purple and green background with

lemon yellow rains. The middle and bottom of the painting has a white background mixed

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with strong blue colors. The overall color palette delivers a cold atmosphere. This

particular temperature represents the ‘sorrow’ in Han. The wave indicates moving towards

the next step, the ‘sweet’ emotion in Han. The painting, Ut Bi, represents the personal level

of contemporary Han, difficulties of employment, or the conflict between the rich and the

poor like the recent Korean movie, Parasite (2019)4 in which each has his or her own

struggles. I mirrored my personality and personal experiences, my helplessness and

reluctance, and expressed them freely and indirectly through poetic abstraction, which is

not an easily readable visual language. The painting process of Ut Bi represents how I could

not only open my personal Han through my paintings but also demonstrates moving on to

the next steps from the past as an artist.

         Recently, the contemporary understanding of Han has expanded to include not only

sorrow but also frustration and anger, based on the changing of the contemporary Korea

society (Kim, 2019) and in particular, its growing competitiveness. The genre of

competition is different depending on people’s age. In the case of middle and high school

students, they compete to go to prestigious universities and to become a doctor or a

lawyer, professions that are the ‘usual’ parents’ dream. The whole country grows excited

on the day of the Korean SAT, which is held once a year, and the score of the test decides

student’s university, and therefore the student’s future. This is not only a student’s test. It

has a nationwide interest. During the English listening test time, the airports are closed for

twenty minutes to keep noise down. Also the national news announces the test date, and

analyzes the difficulty of the test after the exam finished. After graduating from college,

4 This is a recent Korean independent film (2020 Oscar Winner) directed by director Bong Jun-Ho. The movie depicts
many current social issues. Particularly, the movie directly mirrors the stratified socio-economic class system, where
money is one of the core contributors to societal issues in Korea.

                                                            19

everybody competes for jobs in major companies, because the quality of one’s job is a

‘qualification’ for the best spousal candidate for marriage. Everything is connected tightly

and repeats to the next generation. The movie, Parasite, shows the result of the failure of

the competition, and how each class feels and reacts about the social system directly in

Korea. Since contemporary Korean society has not directly faced the Korean War or the

colonial period, and the society is moving towards individualism, the Han has become more

individual, where individuals have condensed, high amounts of stress and anger towards

society rather than a collective Han. I use white to depict the continuity between the origin

of Han and its transforming definition.

       If the painting, Ut Bi, depicts the frozen emotions, the painting, Lee Seul Bi [Fig.7],

drizzling, shows the sweet emotion after the bitter and sorrow. From the definition of Han,

the expression of positive emotion is the result of sublimating negative emotions. The color

of white and light pink with beige indicates the joyful calm, after a struggle. However, the

middle has the combination of dark colors, which indirectly suggests the rest of the

‘problem’ that still needs to be solved, like the memories of lasting pain, which remain in a

scar. The softly curved vertical brushstrokes suggested the process of sublimation is

already finished. The vertical lines in my paintings indicate the dance movement of Salpuri,

which is one of the Korean traditional dances and is about the ceremony of resolving the

person’s deep sorrow, based originally in Korean shamanism (Curtis, 2013). This dance

shows the impromptu movement in simple background music. When a dancer does Salpuri,

each of her hands holds long white cloth, which is the signature point in the dance. This

dance was banned during the Japanese Colonial period because the dance had the

representative characteristic of Korean shamanism and spirit (Curtis, 2013). Because of

                                             20

this historical interruption, it is no longer clear why Salpuri dancers used the white cloths,

but the importance of white cloths in the dance does not change.

         Yanagi Sōetsu (1889 – 1961), a Japanese art critic and philosopher, founded the

Mingei movement in 1925, which was a movement focused on finding aesthetic beauty

from folk crafts and ‘everyday things.’ The Mingei movement occurred during the Japanese

colonial period in Korea, under which Korean cultures including various art forms were

harshly suppressed. Though the movement was mainly about studying Japanese folk crafts,

Yanagi also studied Korean folk crafts and tried to prevent their suppression, ironically,

even as Japanese colonial rule tended to destroy or suppress elements of traditional Korean

culture or identity. Yanagi Sōetsu identified white as the color of Han, which references the

beauty of sorrow (Brandt, 2007). His supporting evidence cited that the color white was

prevalent in mourning clothes and in Jo Seon Dynasty-era porcelains and ceramics (Brandt,

2007).

                             CURRENT ART TRENDS in KOREA

         It is no wonder that for Korean artworks that attempt to instantiate contemporary

reinterpretations of traditional ideas, I feel strongly that the majority of these are hollow

due to the lack of a thorough understanding of the traditional values they are attempting to

reinterpret. They instead superimpose foreign and Western modern concepts into a

traditional format, rather than reincarnating the Korean spirit into a modern body. I

assume this may be due to a lack of deep interest in our own history, traditions, and

cultures and they thus only mimic it, adding and concealing nothing to the original

concepts. The Korean government, for most of its modern history, has focused on economic

                                             21

growth over promoting and restoring Korea’s own traditions (Kim, 2019) and

reinterpreting these into contemporary versions in the way Japan has with their

contemporary tea houses and other traditional values. Setting a high value on the economic

prosperity, and less interest in Korean traditions arose strongly during the military regime,

especially the period of president Park Jeong Hee (1972-1978) (Kim, 2019) and this still

affects current Korean society in many ways.

         In an interview5 with interior designer Yang Tae Oh in Vogue Korea demonstrates

how Korean artists can step up to the next level. His applied arts have a good balance

between Korean traditional beauty and modernity. The best example among his furniture is

the wooden letterbox, which disappeared during the Japanese Colonial period. The letter

size was changed to the standard of the Japanese system. He brought back the original

shape of the letterbox, but he added a section to place a scented candle. Shin Sun Mi’s figure

paintings pursue a similar approach as she combines the special little fairies called Gae Mi

Yo Jeong with a traditional East Asian painting technique. Her paintings depict

contemporary daily life scenes with the small fairies. As I studied Western painting, I

applied this concept to the reinterpretation of the folktale Yeoubi with Western abstract art

techniques; and I arranged the set of my paintings to seem like 14 ft. height Korea

traditional folding screen [Fig. 8 a] as well as the horizontal scroll [Fig. 8 b]. I hope more

Korean artists continue making efforts to combine their specialties with maintaining

5 This interview is taken from Vogue Korea’s YouTube channel. In this interview, Yang Tae Oh describes the renovations
to his old Han Ok, or Korean traditional house, to turn it into a contemporary interpretation of the Han Ok. His interior
design concept shows a balance of old (tradition) and new (modernity).

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Korean traditions, such as the brief 1950’s Korean art movement6 that saw Korean art

combining Western art techniques with a Korean folk-art atmosphere. I hope that a similar

approach can be revived in the present and that my paintings become a part of this modern

continuation of embodying rich Korean traditional values.

                                                    CONCLUSION

         The author of the book, Cross-Cultural Associations of Colors (Jo, 2017), complained

bitterly of difficulties she faced in finding information on the Korean traditional colors.

Word variations in Korean are difficult to translate because there are so many nuances

between the Korean and English, where the words simply don’t have the same connotation.

For example, Korean has eighty adjectives for the concept of ‘red’ and each word delivers a

different tone or ‘feeling’ about the color (Jo, 2017). Given this gap, I hope in the future, that

the English terms for Korean art are more adequately disseminated; however, I hope

through my work and explanation theretofore, that more people in the West can come to

understand the cultural perspective of Koreans.

         The way I interpret my work requires cultural and historical knowledge of Korea,.

This led to many cultural miscommunications. What I assumed was implicit knowledge,

turned out to be culturally specific. After realizing that there was a divide in interpretation,

I began to look for sources to help me bridge this gap. One particularly salient gap was in

the way the West interprets emotion compared to Korea. Unlike in the West, in Korea,

certain emotions can be considered universal, where all Koreans implicitly feel and

6 The most famous painters in this movement were Lee Jung-Seob [Fig.9], Park Su-Guen [Fig.10], and Cheon Kyeong-Ja
[Fig.11]. Their paintings still provide great inspiration and are an example to many Korean people of reinterpreting
traditional art in the modern era.

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understand this certain emotional chord such as Woori, which literally means ‘we’ in

English, but Korean people use this word to unite a certain group or people (most broadly,

the nation; most narrowly, a close-knit social group) to make them act as one or feel

collective emotions.

       Paradoxically, Korea also held great influence in building traditional Japanese

culture. Before the Japanese colonization of Korea, there was a huge amount of cultural

exchange from the Asian mainland to Japan, especially from or through Korea.

Confucianism, Buddhism, the Chinese writing system, all were borrowed from China and

integrated into Korean (and later on Japanese) culture (Kim, 2019). Modern history saw

those directions of influences somewhat reversed, with cultural and technological

influences flowing from Japan to Korea, but the traditional prestige of Chinese cultural

borrowings remained. To clearly explain Korean identity, it was inevitable to bring up

historical background as supporting evidence. My paper particularly contains a good chunk

of historical background from the Japanese colonial period (1910 - 1945), because it is

important part to fully understand the contemporary atmosphere of Korea society, which

combined with complicated scars of the colonial period, from the democratic movements,

and from the rapid economic development post-war Korea experienced (Kim, 2019).

       It could be difficult to distinguish the cultural differences among Korea, China, and

Japan if the readers are not familiar with the delicate variation. The Korean singer, Lim

Kim, made her song, Yellow about this difficulty of distinction. Throughout this paper, I

would argue or guide that Korea has had our own inherent art style even though our

culture certainly was influenced by China and Japan. Koreans have styles and concepts that

were indigenous to our culture and were not fundamentally changed by outside influence.

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These are concepts that I worked to highlight in this collection of paintings: Han, Yeou Bi,

Yeo Baek ui mi, Oh Bang Saeg and Oh Gan Saeg. These concepts are innately Korean and I

hoped through the promotion and usage of these concepts in my work, the traditional arts

of Korea could be seen more prominently in the body of contemporary art. In a narrow

sense, my thesis paintings become the planted seeds for a revival of the 1950’s art

movement where Korean artists combined Western art techniques while expressing

Korean culture and folk themes. I, myself, hope this paper and my paintings become the

gateway to an interest in Korean history and a deeper cultural understanding among a

broader audience.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brandt, Kim. Kingdom of Beauty: Mingei and the Politics of Folk Art in Imperial Japan. Duke
University Press, 2007.

Cavanagh, Clare, et al. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics: Fourth Edition.
Princeton University Press, 2012.

Curtis, File. Korean Dance: Pure Emotion and Energy. Seoul Selection, Korea Foundation,
2013.

Jo, Yeongsu. Saekchae Ui Yeonsang: Cross-Cultural Associations of Color. Siru, 2017.

Kim, Wang-bae. Kamjŏng Kwa Sahoe: kamjŏng ŭi lenjŭ rŭl Tonghae Pon Hanguk Sahoe =
Emotion and Society: Korean Society through the Lens of Emotion. Hanul Akademi, 2019.

McCann, David R. “The Structure of The Korean Sijo.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol.
36, 1976, pp. 114–134. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2718740.

Savada, Andrea Matles, and William Shaw. South Korea: a Country Study. Federal Research
Division, Library of Congress, 1992.

“Yang Tae Oh's Han Ok Interior Design Ep.01.” YouTube, Vogue Korea (Vogue TV), 7 Aug.
2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hwS3g81SkY.

“Yang Tae Oh's Han Ok Interior Design Ep.02.” YouTube, Vogue Korea (Vogue TV), 2 Sep.
2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmMa0l5SzHc.

국립민속박물관(The National Folk Museum of Korea) . “상복 (Sang
Bok).” http://folkency.nfm.go.kr/kr/topic/detail/7058.

“백의민족(Baek ui Min Jok, 白衣民族).” Encyclopedia of Korean Culture,
http://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Contents/Item/E0022280.

“시조(Sijo, 時調).” Encyclopedia of Korean Culture,
https://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Contents/Item/E0032460.

“상복(Sang Bok, 喪服).” Encyclopedia of Korean Culture,
http://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Contents/Item/E0027105.

“[취재일기] 일본 제품 불매운동이 의미하는 것은.” Edited by Jeon Young Sun, 중앙일보, 7
July 2019, news.joins.com/article/23518065.

                                              26

한글 (Hanguel).” Encyclopidea of Korean Culture, Edited by Kang Sin Hang, 1995,
https://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Contents/Item/E0061508.

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PLATES OF ART WORK

[Fig.3] Ggot Bi   Acrylic on Canvas   48 x 48 inches   2020

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[Fig. 4] Jak Dal Bi   Acrylic on Canvas   60 x 60 inches   2020

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[Fig. 5] Yeon U   Acrylic on Canvas   72 x 54 inches   2020

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[Fig. 6] Ut Bi   Acrylic on Canvas   60 x 60 inches   2020

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[Fig. 7] Lee Seul Bi   Acrylic on Canvas   72 x 72 inches   2020

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[Fig. 8 (a) ] The Front Thesis Exhibition Installation (Korea Traditional Folding Screen

Format)

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[Fig. 8 (b) ] The Back Thesis Exhibition Installation (Horizontal Scroll Format)

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[Fig. 9] Example Painting of Lee Jung Seob (Title: Ox)

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[Fig. 10] Example Painting of Park Su Geun (Title: On the Way Back Home)

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[Fig. 11] Example Paintings of Cheon Kyeong Ja (Title: Loneliness)

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