Korea is a peninsula situated in the warm latitudes and its agricultural culture has always revered nature. Shamanism, religious mysticism and, later, Confucianism and Buddhism have always played strong roles in Korean life and culture, resulting in an emphasis on respect for life and the concepts of unity, spiritual pliancy and receptivity. The work of Korean artisans is characterized by naturalness, simplicity, warmth, brightness, depth and spirituality.

Korea's extraordinary 5,000-year-old culture, along with its economy and traditional values of purity, authenticity, and morality, have, however, changed somewhat since the introduction of Western culture in the 1950’s. Modern Korean metal crafts have succeeded in mixing traditional concepts with the new ways of the West, resulting in dynamic transformations of form and style.

The period from the 1950’s to the present has been marked by the contributions of many American and European educators, as well as exhibitions and other cultural events. Change and adaptation are inevitable to culture and history over a long period of time , and past archetypes will eventually be transformed through one of the following: deterioration, destruction or adaptation. The 21 artists introduced here have all experienced this “cultural metastasis” through western education and participation in local activities.

Artists such as Kyung-shin Kim and Komelia Hongja Okim have been educated in Germany and the U.S. where they currently live and work. These artists are among those who have left their home country to build a life in art within a new culture. Jung-hoo Kim is another promising artist who has been educated in the U.S. She currently lives in Korea but pursues an artistic career in both cultures. Artists such as Yong-il Jeon, Kyung-joo Noh and Seung-won Lee have found artistic expression in practical objects made by traditional methods. Soo-won Hong, Myung-joo Lee, Yun-ryoung Lee, and Yeon-hee Ryu express their artistic visions through brooches. They have all been educated abroad and have acquired foreign tastes , but at the same time adhere to the Korean concept of unity with nature.

Among young Korean artists who use traditional materials and techniques are Soyon Hong who reshapes the subjects of Minwha (Korean traditional folk –painting) into ornaments, and Bong-hee Kim who applies the traditional method of painting on finely sanded ox-horns to a series of necklaces. Min-young Oh uses traditional techniques such as “Ipsa” (Korean inlay) while working with jade, coral, and violet quartz on traditional shapes, while Tae-sook Lee uses mother-of-pearl together with silver. These young artists are highly experimental while adapting traditional materials or methods to modern tastes. They have been influenced by artist-professor Jae-young Kim who harmonizes oriental materials such as bamboo and jade, and ornament artist Yong-sook Know who uses the traditional “Chilbo” (enameling) technique.

Kyung-shin Kim is an artist who has searched for national identity while living abroad. Focusing on traditional Korean paper, she uses a patented process of thickening the paper by creasing it and then strengthening it with paraffin , and combines it with silver and gold. Jin-soon Woo is an established artist who has studied in Sweden; her symmetrical grid structures composed of repetitive square units and produced by rigorous piercing techniques, are a clear echo of Korea's traditional lattices.

The young artists Kyung-hwan Kim, Hee-seung Koh, and Jee-hyun Hwang, and their more established colleague Young-kwan Chung , employ traditional pictorial and carving concepts and techniques within the parameters of their Western education. They are all artists who have chosen to work within the international mainstream while striving for a unique voice by blending traditional taste with acquired Western ideas.

It is hoped that this exhibition will convey the innate qualities of Korean art that are unique as well as those that leap across geographic boundaries, and simultaneously demonstrate a creative new contribution to the development of an international language of art . I have become familiar with these artists and their works in the past while working as a reporter of a craft magazine, a director of a gallery, and now as a curator of exhibitions. This particular exhibition is a result of meeting Dr. Robert K. Liu, a director of the magazine Ornament, at SOFA -Chicago in 1998, who then introduced me to Libby and Joanne Cooper of Mobilia Gallery. It took 4 years since that incidental encounter for this exhibition to take place. I would like to thank Libby and JoAnne Cooper for providing this opportunity to present these Korean artists to an American audience; I also want to thank two fiber artists, Hee-jin Kim and Hee-sook Lim , who made beautiful Korean-style wrapping cloths for this show.

MyungOk Hayun Jeon
Curator
Seoul, Korea