Explore Korean Art
January 29th through February 8th, 2016
2nd Floor, Neiman Marcus Paramus, 503 Garden State Plaza, Paramus, NJ 07652
Curated by Minsook Nam

Korean art is influenced by the Buddhism and Confucian culture, which is the foundations of a stable, peaceful civilization. Korean art is austere but decent. Koreans love art and art has always been in Korean history. The theme of the paintings show various conceptions or subject matter such as landscapes, still life, documentation of commemoration, and calligraphy.

Explore Korean Art explores contemporary Korean cultural identity within American society. This exhibition introduces Korean culture to other cultures through various media and genre representing five artists.

안금주 (Kumjoo Ahn), 한수진(Soojin Han), 유영은(Grace Y. Kim), 김옥주(Okjoo Kim), 남상란(Sangran Nam)

Jungin Okjoo Kim

Sun, Moon and Five Peaks,2016.
The Sun, Moon and Five Peaks was originally for use in the palace and is the background picture of the 10,000 won bill behind King Sejong. The intriguing characteristic of this picture is the Sun and the Moon, five peaks, pine trees, water falls, and waves drawn symmetrically to emphasize a king’s prowess, the kings good governance, and all these things coming together with a king in the middle to complete the picture. Such paintings not only symbolized the royal presence, but also represent a promise from heaven of ancestral blessings on King’s descendants.

SangRan Nam

Blossom in moonlight, 2015.
SangRan Nam paints the nature and daily life using black ink and Korean Paper. Subjects such as the moon and blossoms make me feel home. Her intention is to inherit the tradition through work of art.

Kumjoo Ahn

A apricot flower tree and rocks by Hongdo Kim, 2015.
“Hand-sewing and hand-embroidering gives emotional stability, calmness, perseverance and golden mean to me. All of my works are inspired by the disappearing traditional world and human  beings who lives in modern times. Every work is crafted by only hands, tiny needles and traditional needlework techniques and materials and most of fabrics are hand-dyed with natural materials to get the best color combinations. The reason why I keep hand-sewing and hand-embroidering instead of sewing machine is that I want to break the prejudice which hand-sewing and hand-embroidering is hard, outdated and boring. It also can provide the opportunity for people to meet the beauty of forgetting traditional Korean craft art and golden mean. I tend to focus on a variety of textile weaving pattern in plain ramie and silk fabric to express Korean virtues such as perseverance, golden mean, harmony, moderation and integrity. And I have arranged traditional and modern Korean abstract image and minimalism into works. For example, bojagi artworks which is made with bright and colorful fabric have both simple composition of piece and the strong and contemporary abstract image. Ramie bojagi with one color fabric which has warm asymmetry is linked by Korean monochromatic paintings and minimalism.”
_ Kumjoo Ahn’s Artist Statement

Grace Y. Kim

Noble men’s virtue (한죽송풍)
It is the Korean tradition of artistic writing in Hanja(not Hangul, Korean alphabet), respectively the Chinese characters. “寒竹松風” means that a bamboo & pine tree can endure any cold wave and storm.

Sujin Han

Water lily 1,2, 2015.
I think the black color is the most simple yet it embraces all the colors. It has a power to express the diversity. Based on the traditional material, my works show the mother nature through understanding the harmony of empty space and painted space.
_ Soojin Han’s Artist Statement