Innovative artisanship of Korea

By Victoria Gail-White
Advertiser Art Critic

•	Crossings 2003: Korea/Hawai'i 10:30 a.m to 4:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays; 1-5 p.m. Sundays, through Nov. 9 Honolulu Academy of Arts 532-8700

The names on the placards throughout the exhibit are listed in traditional Korean fashion, surname first. Many of the artists in this exhibit also are professors and have published books on art.

The exhibit is especially strong in fiber works.

Lee Chunghie's pojagi-inspired tributes (see "Wrappings of Happiness" review below) to the unnamed women of Korean society during the Chosan dynasty begin at the gallery entrance with "Apron of the No-Name Women." This oversized apron is screen-printed with vintage images of Korean women and sewn, collage-style, with pastel-colored translucent silks in layers.

A profound and haunting installation of various lengths of 30 lavender-gray silk and synthetic panels with white photo-screen printed images of "Chogakpo (No-Name) Women" floats like ghosts. Her architectural "Chogakpo Shoes" bring a more playful element to this traditional art form. (These shoes are also featured in the gallery section of the October-November issue of American Craft magazine.)

"I thought their lives were not integrated because they had no recognition," says Lee of her nameless women subjects. "But somehow their attitudes and authentic hearts have timeless value."

Lee Shin Ja's 61-foot monochromatic tapestry of the Han River flowing through the city of Seoul is like a painted scroll. Designed from her sketches and photographs, it took three years to complete.

Song Burn Soo's tapestries, inspired by the biblical crown of thorns, are also monochromatic. Thick, black thorns appear to poke out of the wool, cotton and acrylic fibers. His work is graphically delineated with elongated shadows that, from a distance, give it a spiky intensity.

As dark as Song's tapestries may be, the work of Ha Won refreshes in its lightness of being. Her elegantly all-white cast paper tree and leaf shapes mark a passage of time and bring paper and tree together in reverie. "Trace Fragments," a seven-panel, floor-to-ceiling installation made of cheesecloth and paper cast from tree trunks includes the moss, dust and surface texture of the trees. Ha's juxtaposition of organic and geometric elements echoes the beauty of nature and the inevitability of death and decay.

The shapes of nature — cocoons, larvae and bug-eaten flowers —were also the inspiration for Oh Soon Hee's basket forms. However, instead of using natural materials (as she usually does), she used brightly colored plastic-covered telephone wire and electronic parts.

In Chang Yeon Soon's three large, three-dimensional indigo-dyed abaca-fiber shapes titled "Abstract Thinking," geometry seems to float on air. The shadows cast from these open shapes move dreamlike with the air. Warning: Watching them for too long may result in a sensation of weightlessness.

The metal work of artists Yoo Lizzy, Jeon Yong Il, Hong Jung Sil, and Jung Young Kuwan prove their skill mastery.

Jung mixes copper and brass in his lyrical "Rhythms of the Sea." Complicated anticlastic molding and pounding techniques give the spiculum (needle-like) legs of this garden-like sculpture a tenuous and fluid jellyfish appearance.

Hong incorporates a traditional Korean wire inlay technique, choeum ispa, integrating several baked lacquer coats into her steel-framed, Ch™san-inspired shapes.

The lacquer artists Chung Young Hwan, Jung Yong Ju and Kim Seol bring deserved attention and new dimension to this art form in their inventive use of materials and shapes.

The red-hot teardrop and triangular shape in Kim Seol's lacquer pieces surpass functionality balanced on their transparent plastic bases.

The ceramic work of artists Lee Jeong Do, Kim Yik Yung, Cho Chung Hyun and Kim Soo Jeong varies in size from small brush holders to 5-foot-high elongated shapes. Sophisticated glazes cover the forms — modern and ancient — evocative of ritualistic celadon and porcelain pottery.

Kim's "Black Vase Form" is made of porcelain that has been wheel-thrown, altered, cut, seamed, incised, glazed and sandblasted. "We have beautiful jars," she said. "Korea is known as the country of jars. This piece is a contemporary Korean jar that is cut and patched together like sewing clothes." It has an ageless quality — both ancient and modern simultaneously.