INTERVIEW Creative souls: Disabled artists visualize what others miss

Installation view of the exhibition "Shrunken Paper, Expanded World" at the Buk-Seoul Museum of Art in Nowon District, northeastern Seoul / Courtesy of SeMA

By Park Han-sol

• Published Jul 8, 2021 2:49 PM KST
• Updated Jul 9, 2021 4:33 PM KST

Exhibition showcases the works of 22 self-taught artists with developmental disabilities and mental health conditions

By Park Han-sol

While the faces and hairstyles of the news anchors and weathercasters who regularly fill the TV screen remain unmemorable to many, to 31-year-old Chung Jong-pil, such images have been imprinted into his memory from a young age.

As an artist with a developmental disability, he reproduces his own small portraits of these media figures, with a ballpoint pen on blank white paper, dozens or even hundreds of times every day, with not even a moment of hesitation. Although the endless rows of faces seem all the same at first, upon closer inspection, viewers are able to witness minute yet interesting variations in their expressions, hairstyles and attire.

“Some of the people I've drawn over the years include KBS newscasters Kang Sung-gon, Yoon In-goo, Seo Ki-cheol, Lee Sun-young, Kim Min-jung and Kim Yoon-ji, as well as weathercasters Shin Ye-ji and Lee Se-ra,” he told The Korea Times in a recent email interview.

“I like the costumes they wear and their voices are pleasant to hear. And I'm happiest when I'm drawing something.”

For years, however, the artist's works went unrecognized both at home and in classrooms. His parents, interpreting these drawings as the results of unhealthy symptoms of their son's disorder, threw them away countless times.

“To us at the time, the works that he produced repetitively every day seemed to be of little value,” his parents, Shin Pil-ja and Chung Bong-sik, explained. “His school teacher also asked us not to let him bring blank sheets of paper to class, so we thought that his obsession with drawings got in the way of communicating with other people.”

Five years ago, curator Kim Hyo-na, who specializes in working with artists with developmental disabilities, came across Chung's art. Surprised, she informed his parents of the unique, creative nature of the pieces and asked them to hold on to his massive pile of drawings. The couple was taken aback by her request, and still remained largely unsure.

It was only when part of Chung's series, spanning more than 15 years, appeared at the exhibition, “Shrunken Paper, Expanded World,” at the Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, a branch of the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA), that they were able to reexamine their attitudes toward what indeed constitutes “art.”

“We used to think that only splendidly drawn and colored commercial paintings were praiseworthy. But seeing with our own eyes the works of our son and other similar artists on display, our thoughts changed completely.”

The ongoing exhibition, “Shrunken Paper, Expanded World,” in Nowon District, northeastern Seoul, presents the expansive oeuvres of 22 self-taught artists with either developmental disabilities or mental health conditions across the country.

With many of the pieces drawn via a cheap ballpoint pen or a mechanical pencil on the back of scrap paper or even an old calendar, these creators' works have often been dismissed as meaningless doodles or, as in Chung's case, simply attesting to their disabilities. The pieces were then thrown out or tucked away in a corner of the room, slowly forgotten as they gathered dust.

The Buk-Seoul Museum of Art has chosen to bring to light these very stacks of work containing the artists' endless hours of devotion and pure creative endeavors ― what they have expressed for years through 737 paintings, drawings, mosaics, collages, typography and ceramics.

Among the featured creators, Chung is not the only one who seeks peace and contentment through repetitions and variations of images. Yoon Mi-ae, a 66-year-old artist who resides in a senior mental health care facility in Gwangju, devotes herself to producing curious forms of mosaics that represent the Holy Communion.

By cutting up snack and instant coffee packages, gum wrappers, milk cartons and Catholic newspapers into tiny triangular pieces and gently gluing them to paper in the shape of a circle, she breathes life into the materials that are discarded in her facility every day.

Yoon often finds herself lost in her passion project, even skipping meals at times. The act of visualizing the Holy Communion not only satisfies her creative desire, but also becomes her meaning of life.

“In the communion, the round wafer or the host represents the body of Christ. To me, who attends church every week, the circle itself is imbued with sacred meaning and becomes a symbol of my belief,” she told The Korea Times.

“Ever since I was young, I've had no family and had to move constantly from place to place, meeting new people and parting ways over and over again. In my life, Christ has been like my friend, sometimes my mother, father and a great big fence that I can rely on. So, when I place the small triangular pieces onto the paper to form a circle, my mind becomes incredibly at ease.”

Yoon's art series, which began in 2015, now consists of several hundred mosaic works, all with distinctive color schemes and patterns.

The exhibition's title, “Shrunken Paper, Expanded World” comes from the work of another featured artist, Kim Dong-hyeon.

His signature pieces can be defined as detailed maps of seemingly never-ending subway lines and railways, which blend the actual places seared into his memory with imaginary stations and roads.

When asked why all the roads he draws have so many twists and turns, he answered: “It's because the roads are so long but the paper is so small.” This simple statement perfectly sums up the artist's tenacious creative desire, which the exhibit aims to illuminate.

For Kim, whose father worked as a transporter of candles to Buddhist temples across the country, the countless roads, stations and tunnels he witnessed from the back of his father's car became a great source of inspiration at a young age. He then began visually to analyze subway maps, train timetables and the interiors of train cars to fully develop his own transportation universe.

The 28-year-old artist expands his “canvas” by gluing pieces of scrap paper or notepads together and draws his imaginative route maps with a touch of humor, including “National Railway Strawberry Cake Line” and “Food Metropolitan City Subway Map.”

“The longest route I've ever drawn is The Great Wall Railway. It's the most extensive expressway in Asia with 130 tunnels and 80 rest stops.” he said. “On the road, you can also encounter a wild boar!”

Sometimes, the features of the subway system that fascinate Kim have been incorporated directly into his drawing process, especially in “Monday to Friday Line 5.”

“The subway is so interesting because its doors can open on the left or the right side of the train, and it can also travel both underground and aboveground.”

He made a triangular, pyramid-shaped dice with four sides, which he rolled while drawing the route. The number it landed on determined whether the train goes below or above ground (1 for below and 2 for above) as well as which side the doors open on at that particular station (3 for left and 4 for right).

Kim works as a high school assistant librarian by day and spends much of his free time drawing. Four of his pieces are currently in the collection of the abcd foundation in France, which aims to promote “art brut,” or “raw art” produced by self-taught creators deviating from mainstream artistic trends.

To organize the exhibition, guest curator Kim Hyo-na, along with co-curators Kim In-kyung and Lee Ji-hye, scoured the country, from Seoul to Gwangju, Busan and Jeju Island, to meet artists working on the fringes of society. The two Kims are also founders of the artists' group, Bright Workroom, which works with artists and creators with developmental disorders through workshops, publications and exhibits.

“These artists do not necessarily see themselves as artists and do not put particular meaning behind the results of their continuous act of drawing. Rather, they simply concentrate on the very process of expressing their inner selves or the worlds they create,” Kim Hyo-na explained, adding that “Shrunken Paper, Expanded World” aims to shed light on their instinctive desire for self-expression without putting it under a limiting label, such as “outsider art” or “disability art.”

“Their creative endeavors are an intimate part of their existence.”

Artists with disabilities are often packaged and consumed in the media as “inspirational” characters who supposedly accomplish amazing feats “despite the odds.”

The exhibition breaks away from this sort of objectification, making sure it is the creators' own voices that are heard, rather than others speaking for them. As they remain independent from the mainstream art system and institutions, their works do not attempt to prove anything to the art world. Rather, they simply exist as the raw, boundless landscapes of their creativity.

“Shrunken Paper, Expanded World” runs until Aug. 22 at the Buk-Seoul Museum of Art.