I haven't written any blog posts for over a month, so I would like to tell you about the reason for that (which has a lot to do with Korea and art). And I am very excited to write about this, so let's get started!
April 2024 in Korea
April has been a fun, busy, and exciting month for me. I went on a one-month trip to Korea to meet my family, friends and Korean painting teacher. It was a blast! I hadn't seen them for over a year, so for sure there was a lot to chat about while enjoying a lot of yummy food. It felt as if I went back in time, to the period when I lived in Korea. The weather was great as well, so I went to many places and got inspired by the things I saw.
For example, I visited the ‘Flowers and Butterflies in Joseon Paintings’ exhibition at the National Museum of Korea. At this exhibition, I saw this well-known painting with pink Chinese roses, a tiger swallowtail butterfly and a cabbage butterfly by Shin Myeongyeon in real life.
For preservation purposes, museums do not continually put every work they own on display; instead, they create special exhibitions for precious works like these. Also, it is nice to see exhibitions by theme, where the curators can tell a story that might make visitors look at paintings differently. Anyway, I could admire the fine brushstrokes in this painting from nearby and saw several other masterpieces at this exhibition.
Bon Art Studio
While living in Korea (about 1,5 years ago), I learned Korean painting from my lovely teacher at @bon_artstudio. Last month, I visited my teacher again and followed her classes. The studio moved from the small and cosy studio where I first learned Minhwa, to a spacious and inspiring new place. It is amazing seeing how she made the new studio such a nice place, inspiring me even more to follow my dreams.
I worked on two different paintings this time. The first one is a painting of a lady in hanbok (the Korean traditional dress) by Shin Yun-bok. He is regarded as one of the most famous painters of the late Joseon era (this painting was made late eighteenth - early nineteenth century). His style is known for the fine detailed linework, which you can see especially in the hairs of the wig. It would be cool to try this style as well when designing my personal portrait paintings later.
The second painting is a landscape called ‘Boat to Peach Blossom Garden’ by An Jung-Sik which I am still working on. It is based on a story about a fisherman who gets lost and finds a hidden paradise in green mountains and pink blossom trees. It depicts an utopic beautiful landscape with the feeling of spring. The vivid colours, detailed brushstrokes to create a texture on the mountains, and the atmospheric perspective created by using lighter colours in the background, make this painting stand out.
My art teacher also helped me submit my portfolio to the KMEA (Korea Minhwa Education Association). So now I have obtained the Minhwa instructor level 1 certificate! I am very proud of achieving this, taking one small step closer to following my dreams. As I wrote in my first post I already obtained the level 2 certificate, which shows I know the theory and can reproduce traditional works. Level 1 (this is the highest level of this certificate) shows that I am also able to create original works in a contemporary style.
Korean Art Exhibitions in Seoul
Since I was in Korea for 4 weeks, I had a lot of time to visit multiple exhibitions. Earlier in this post I mentioned the exhibition at the National Museum of Korea. Also, I went multiple times to different galleries in Insadong, the area in Seoul where most galleries and art material shops are located.
A noteworthy exhibition I visited was the ‘민화, 나눔의 아름다움’ (Minhwa, the beauty of sharing) exhibition at Kimsechoong Museum. This exhibition was curated by 정병모 (Jeong Byeong-mo), a well-known Korean folk painting expert. He carefully selected works of the best contemporary Minhwa artists of this time. Therefore this was an impressive and inspiring exhibition to visit. I plan to write a detailed blog series about this exhibition, so stay tuned for that.
Besides exhibitions only about Minhwa, I also visited a large exhibition of contemporary art made by 90 young Korean artists. The ‘5th ArtRock Festival’ was organised by ‘Eco Capital’ which is a company that created a platform for young upcoming artists to support them in selling their artworks. This exhibition included Minhwa, but also many other types of art. The exhibition was huge, displaying 900! artworks. It gave a good representation of the contemporary art scene in Korea.
Special Lecture on Framing
When I was in Korea, after finishing a painting I would bring it to a specialised store to get it framed. In essence, every painting painted on thin Sunji (Korean rice paper) needs to be backed with a thicker type of paper to preserve it better and to make it look smooth and neat again. After that, you can store it like that or get it framed on for example a panel, scroll, or folding screen. In the image below you can see a painting I brought to Korea this year, and I took it to a specialised shop to make scrolls out of it.
But in the Netherlands, there is no such a shop, so I wanted to learn how to back and frame my paintings. I found a very experienced and friendly teacher in Suwon (a city just under Seoul), so I went there for a full afternoon to learn everything about it. She was very passionate and answered all the questions I prepared before coming to the studio.
Before this class, I tried it at home following some YouTube videos. I had a few struggles doing it on my own, but thanks to this class I have learned a lot and am confident now that I can do it at home with success. I learned how to make glue out of starch, how to back a painting with paper, and how to frame a painting onto a wooden panel.
What is also interesting, is that now I have learned more about the framing of paintings, I also know what to pay attention to while painting to make the framing process easier. I enjoyed this class very much! Now I am back in the Netherlands and I already practised at home again, and already improved a lot since the previous time I tried this.
Shopping art materials
Of course, I had to buy new art materials during my trip. It is difficult and very expensive to get the materials in Europe. I haven’t found a specialised store in the Netherlands for it yet. In Korea, Insadong is the best place to buy your (traditional) art materials. I want to write some posts on the materials in detail later, so please patiently wait for that.
Sometimes I use watercolour or gouache to paint, but I enjoy painting with Korean materials the most. I feel like I have the most control over these, and I like the process of working with them. This includes priming the paper and making paint from pigments. I would say that the two most important materials are 순지 (Sunji - paper) and 아교 (Agyo - binder).
The paper used in Korean folk art is called Hanji or Sunji. In English, it is called ‘rice paper’, because of the white colour, and I guess also because of the transparency. It is a thin type of paper made of the inner bark of the mulberry tree, mixed with other ingredients giving it perfect properties for painting.
Agyo is a sort of glue or binder made of collagen. It is used to prime the paper and to give the paint the right consistency so that it has the desired flow and sticks well to the paper.
I got many different materials this time: brushes, paints, pigments, ink, silk fans, paper, and some sparkle paints. I never know when will be the next time that I can visit Korea, so it is nice to go on a shopping haul in Insadong. I cannot wait to use all these materials and create new paintings!
Wolgan Minhwa Magazine
I kept the most exciting news at last … drum roll … Two of my artworks are presented in the ‘Wolgan Minhwa’ magazine. This is THE monthly magazine in Korea about Minhwa. It includes information and reviews on exhibitions, expert talks about specific topics, interviews with artists, etc. Also, there is a section called ‘5 people 5 colours’ where 5 artists of each two artworks are presented. And for the May edition, I was one of them. I am very honoured and proud that I got the opportunity to be in the magazine next to other amazing artists.
The magazine is written in Korean, but I translated it for you, my dear reader. You can find the article in the 2024 May edition (volume 122) of ‘Wolgan Minhwa’ on pages 58 and 59, or the minhwa news website. The text on the left side is an introduction about myself:
She was born in the Netherlands and majored in Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. In 2021, she married her Korean husband and while living in Korea, she was fascinated by Korean folk paintings and studied folk paintings for about three years. She earned her second level certificate as a folk painting instructor from KMEA (Korea Minhwa Education Association). Her goal is to make Korean folk paintings more widely known in the Netherlands and Europe. Recently, she started writing a blog with information and work on folk paintings at www.cosycolours.nl
The text on the right side is a short description of my artworks with the title ‘Our lovely and mysterious paradise’:
These paintings painted by a Dutch artist, remind us of fantastic fairy tales. Fascinated by Korean folk paintings, she presents original works with a European touch. The painting "Panda Paradise" is about enjoying one's freedom in daily life without being aware of anyone's gaze. The other painting is inspired by the story of a Middle Eastern folk tale, "Aladdin and a Magic Lamp." Her work shows deep affection and an excellent sense of folk painting.
What's next?
Thank you for reading this post, and stay tuned for the upcoming posts with more in-depth content on the artworks I saw at the galleries in Korea, the painting process, and all the other topics I want to write about.
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