Special exhibition of Chun Kyung-ja's art

By Kim Jin-heon

Painter Chun Kyung-ja has been described by Lee Tae-ho, an art critic, as a master of modern Korean art. A person who tried to express the beautiful colors of witchcraft in pursuit of modernity, primitivism and eroticism. Chun Kyung-ja was born in 1924 in Goheung County, South Jeolla Province, and died in 2015.

Chun lived in a patriarchal society and suffered a lot of personal pain. Such experiences encouraged her to express her inner pain through various images, such as flowers, women and snakes. Among the painter’s art are notable works, including "Ecology" (1951), which describes thirty-five living snakes, "Page 22 of My Sad Legend" (1977) and "Mother Theresa" (1977), expressing her self-portrait.

After studying art in Japan during the early 1940s, Kyung-ja came into the spotlight when she received the Presidential Award for her work, "Ecology," at the National Art Exhibition in 1951. Her works were not bound by tradition but pursued a realistic painting style, absorbing modern-day forms such as cubism, expressionism and surrealism.

Since the 1960s, the world of her works began to evolve from realism to mystery and fantasy. From 1969 onwards, after studying in France, she traveled all over the world, including to Tahiti, Africa and Latin America. As a result, the world of her art expanded further.

For instance, the impressionistic colors of Gauguin's style in Tahiti, along with the primitivism of Africa and South America, inspired her to create works such as "At the Tahiti Gauguin Museum of Art" (1969) and "Page 49 of My Sad Legend" (1976).

During the 1980s, she tried to find the inner primitivism hidden in civilization through works such as "Wuthering Heights" (1981) and "Monument Valley" (1987) as she traveled around England and the USA.

During the 1990s, as a way of exploring her own identity, the painter expressed primal vitality through eroticism in works such as "Wail of Dusk" (1995) and "Fantasy Tour" (1995). Until she died, her passion for art continued.

Due to her unwavering passion for the arts, the painter created a vast body of work throughout her life. The majority of these pieces are now owned by individuals, as well as civic and public organizations.

To mark the 100th anniversary of Chun Kyung-ja's birth, Goheung County reached out to citizens and encouraged them to display her paintings at the Buncheong Culture Museum in Goheung. As a result, 160 of her works have been exhibited since Nov. 11 and will remain on display until Dec. 31.

One critic who organized the exhibition said that through constant challenges, Chun Kyung-ja established a unique style of painting. She was a painter of spirits, a magician of colors and a writer of solitude and bitter feeling. Her work marks a great milestone in the history of Korean contemporary art.

Kim Jin-heon is a retired English teacher who published a book titled, "Flower Is Flower."