Bureaucrat-Turned-Painter Destroys to Create
By Lee Hyo-won
Staff Reporter
Creation and destruction are perhaps two sides of the same coin. ``One must create by breaking and demolishing existing rules, or else there will be no progress,'' painter Hwang Jin-hyun, 79, told The Korea Times.
The former economic adviser's creations are inspired by ``creative destruction'' ― an economic concept. Radical innovation ― entrepreneurship and new technology ― sometimes collectively disrupt the existing order of the day, like how cellular phones forever altered our daily lives.
In Hwang's oil paintings, provocative colors and contrasts dominate the canvas, and objects are shockingly deconstructed and reduced to their primitive form. The jagged texture comes from using a coarse palette knife rather than a painting knife or brush ― ``I used a knife because I was always very angry,'' he said about the ``authoritative'' people who dominated his former governmental profession.
Born in 1929 in Gyeongju, Hwang had to abandon his childhood dreams of becoming an artist when his father died, leaving him, a high school student at the time, as the head of his family. He took the path of a bureaucrat to support his younger siblings.
While dispatched in the Korean Consulate General in the United States during the 1970s, a middle-aged Hwang enrolled in the New York Art Students' League, where he picked up the paint brush for the first time in decades. After moving back to Korea, he resigned as director-general of the former Economic Planning Board to devote himself entirely to art.
`Life Is short, Art Is Long'
``Life is short, art is long,'' he said about taking the road less taken, smiling with his kind, knowing eyes. Hwang paints portraits of daily scenes ― fishermen and merchants at bustling markets, a child looking out from his impoverished home and folk musicians dancing.
The explosive and even violent quality of his work stirs up intense emotions, from pervasive sadness ― ``han'' or a haunting sense of grief inherent to Korean culture ― to bitterness and fury.
And yet, chaos achieves balance, harmony and peace, like a ray of sunlight after a tumultuous storm. Hwang saw Korea make headway from being one of the world's poorest countries to its 13th largest economy. ``Ordinary people ― the fortitude of mothers and devotion of fathers ― built the nation, not the ruling elite,'' said the artist.
Hwang's paintings are an arduous love letter to the Korean people, written in bold strokes of paint. Fans of photographer Yoon Chuyung may recognize a kindred spirit, a champion of capturing mothers toiling to support their family outside the traditional domestic realm. They are a reflection of Korea's modern history and the adventures of one man.
``I hope I might inspire people by showing that life can start anew,'' Hwang said about his debut as an artist at age 50. But he wasn't looking to become a professional. It was simply for his own pleasure, to satisfy his hungry and long overdue appetite to create something new and named.
Having no alumni connections or such, he was very much secluded from the local art world. Hwang simply concentrated on his work and exhibited them in his small Ogeum-dong gallery, and his artistic merits did not go unnoticed.
``A French painter Adolph Monticelli in Marseilles is closer to works painted by Hwang Jin-hyun… Mr. Monticelli's fame, unfortunately, for him, was a posthumous fame. Mr. Hwang's pictures deserve to be appreciated for their virtues today,'' wrote Arthur J. McTaggart (1914-2003), a Korea-based art critic who has helped feted painter Lee Jung-seop debut overseas and donated precious Korean relics to the National Museum of Korea.
The head of prominent art magazine Misulsegye walked past Hwang's gallery by chance. Three days later, he received a call inviting him as the featured artist for the magazine's 24th anniversary exhibition.
``The offer really startled me, but I learned from friends it was a great privilege… I'm turning 80 years old and I hope this won't be the last anxious flower,'' said Hwang, referring to how flowers take full bloom before wilting. Large, blank canvases await him in his studio for more creative destructive to blossom.
The Chosun Ilbo Art Museum is located near exit 6 of Gwanghwamun station, northern Seoul. Proceed to your left and enter the alleyway next to the police station and then the one between a supermarket and Holly's Coffee and you will find the red brick building. Call (02) 724-6328.