그림 회繪에 그림 화畫: 최수련

《Paint hoe繪, Paint huà畫》

Sooryeon Choe

5 - 30 April 2023

The title of the exhibition, 《Paint hoe繪, Paint huà畫》 implies Sooryeon Choe’s method of painting. Her oil paintings portray traditional and classical images of Northeast Asia, reimagined in a modern context; tracing classic ghost stories, oriental painting books, and prophets. The series <Transcriptions for the Hangeul Generation> paints Chinese characters from original texts collected by the artist, and adds reading sounds and interpretation. For this revelation, Choe has created a work that utilizes the pages of <The Tao of Painting>, 1956, by Mai Mai Sze, shows how to paint flowers, trees, stones, people, and objects in Oriental painting, as the basis for her work.

Her paintings look familiar, like handwritten notes, but they are a mixture of disparate and ambivalent things that cannot be clearly defined. As you read the pictures and look at the writing, the repetition of "death and dying" in her paintings is both funny and frightening, like a joke in a dull twist, or like a bitter reminder of the transience of life. In old Chinese texts, the seriousness of the font coexists with humor that comes from its verbosity and seriousness. The familiarity, unfamiliarity, and sometimes ridiculousness of Chinese texts reflects our dual attitudes towards 'Oriental' things. 

Meanwhile, the artist is holding the question of painting. From her solo exhibition at Incheon Art Platform in 2020, a series based on ‘Pictures for Use and Pleasure,’ <The Tao of Painting> and to 《Paint hoe繪, Paint huà畫》. However, the artist is unable to put her sincere conviction about 'good painting' in front, as the classical discourse quoted in the painting does. Perhaps her sincere confession can only be made in a joking manner, as a tautology, just as the Chinese character hoe huà means 'picture picture'.

Artist’s Statement

Depicting with interest the way oriental images are reproduced and consumed in contemporary times. Oriental things, considered old and strange in post-modern Korean society are half-suspiciously covered up, be liked, and rethought in their utility. Based on the traditional clichéd images shared by Northeast Asia, she tries to catch sorrow, women, the gap between reality, inner orientalism, doubt, ignorance, and absurdity.

She graduated from the Department of Painting at Hongik University and earned her master's degree in Western Painting from Seoul National University. She has held solo exhibitions such as <Moojung Pilsa>, 2020, <Taepyeong Sunjeon> 2020, and <Music of a Lost Country>, 2019, Cheongju Art Studio, 2018.