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| Installation view of "House, Family, Nature and Chang Ucchin" at Gallery Hyundai in central Seoul / Courtesy of Gallery Hyundai |
By Kwon Mee-yoo
Artist Chang Uc-chin (1917-90) is one of the most popular Korean modern painters, best known for pursuing childlike innocence throughout his career.
Gallery Hyundai is presenting an exhibition commemorating the 30th anniversary of Chang's passing titled "House, Family, Nature and Chang Ucchin."
The exhibit, held in cooperation with the Chang Ucchin Museum of Art in Yangju, Gyeonggi Province, and the Chang Ucchin Foundation, features about 50 works centering on Chang's lifetime themes of family and nature.
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| Chang Uc-chin during his Myeongnyun-dong era (1975-80) / Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Hyundai |
Born in Yeongi, South Chungcheong Province, when Korea was under Japanese colonial rule, Chang studied at the Imperial Art Institute in Tokyo, Japan. After learning Western art styles there, Chang established the Neo-Realist Group, a modernist art group, in Korea in 1947.
He worked as an art professor at Seoul National University after the 1950-53 Korean War, but quit in 1960 and devoted himself to painting throughout his life.
The artist's daughter Kyeong-soo, who serves as director of the foundation, said her father took a single path as a painter in dark times.
"Under his mantra 'I am simple,' the aesthetics are rooted in the artist's utopic simplicity embedded in the small-scale paintings," the gallery said in a statement.
The exhibit organizes Chang's works in four phases based on where the artist's studio was located ― Deokso (1963-75), Myeongnyun-dong (1975-80), Suanbo (1980-85) and Yongin (1986-90) ― as location and surroundings played an important role in Chang's artistic world.
At the Deokso studio, Chang was separate from his family, who visited there on weekends. Located in what is now Namyangju in northern Gyeonggi Province, the riverside studio provided Chang a place for internal dialogue with himself after morning strolls.
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| Chang Uc-chin's "Family" (1973) / Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Hyunda |
His major paintings such as "Family," a tiny painting with four family members in a house with two trees and birds, were created during this period.
After the Deokso area was developed and became crowded, Chang moved his studio to Myeongnyun-dong in northeastern Seoul. He renovated a hanok (traditional Korean house) into his studio, complete with a small pavilion named Gwaneodang. During this period, structures similar to pavilions or gazebos often appear in Chang's paintings, showcasing his love of nature.
In the early 1980s, Chang moved to Suanbo, South Chungcheong Province. He described the scenery around his country house as very beautiful with a stream nearby and surrounded by mountains.
He moved to Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, in 1986 and stayed and worked there for five years before he passed away. Chang produced about one third of his works here, or some 220 pieces out of 720 lifetime creations.
In some of the later paintings created before the artist passed away in 1990, a man in white clothes in the sky is a recurring element.
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| Chang Uc-chin's "Tree" (1987) / Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Hyundai |
Kim Yi-soon, art history professor at Hongik University, said some motifs repeatedly appear in Chang's oeuvre ― a tree, house, human figure, bird or magpie, sun and moon.
"The exhibit's title ― house, family and nature ― refers to Chang's trademark objects. However, these objects do not appear separately, but are in organic relations. House and human figures drawn together imply family, while trees and mountains around people signal Chang's utopia," Kim said.
In Chang's paintings, a house is expressed by simple squares and triangles and symbolizes the shelter protecting the artist and his family from the aftermath of the war and providing stability.
Family represents happiness and love supporting the artist, while idyllic nature symbolizes a place of peace where people and animals coexist with Taoistic implications.
In many of Chang's paintings, the sun and moon appear together in symmetric composition.
"In one of Chang's paintings, a tree is painted in the center with a magpie in it with a person in a house on top of the tree and a sun and a moon on each side. This composition represents Chang's utopia and microcosm, with many variations," Kim said.
The exhibition provides an opportunity to explore the humor and freedom that is unlocked by the seeming naivety exuding from the artist's elegantly manifested visual language, according to the gallery.
The exhibit runs through Feb. 28.
