Critics
Contemplation of the Land, Nature, and Returning to the Matrix
Yoon Jin Sup (Art Critic)
I.
Globalization of Korean art in the true sense began in the early 1990s, with the onset of civilian government. Korea caught the world’s attention as renowned news media including Newsweek and TIME magazine showed extraordinary interest in Korea’s globalization policy, then led by President Kim Young-sam. Signs of this globalization strategy had already begun appearing in the 1970s industrialization era under President Park Chung-Hee. In July 1977, the cover of Newsweek magazine was titled “The Koreans are Coming!” After achieving the goal of “$10 billion in exports,” the Korean economy began turning its eyes toward the world. One of the top contributors to Korea’s globalization was its semiconductor industry, led by Samsung.
Time has flown and Korea is no longer the small, marginal country it once was. Now the President of Korea is invited to the G7 Summit, and Korea is among the world's economic leaders, ranking in size among the top 10 nations in world trade.
What about culture and the arts? It is well known that the so-called “Korean wave” has grown rapidly and had a powerful impact on the world, mainly in the areas of K-Pop and cinema, as witnessed in the examples of the boy band BTS, the movie Parasite, and the series Squid Game. Considering the high value-added characteristics of culture and arts, this phenomenon led by the “Korean wave” is a good thing, the more the better. Why not push harder? Though there are no clear victories in the arts like there are in sports, their strong point is that they can appeal to the senses of people worldwide, subtly soaking in like the warmth of a slowly burning fire.
II.
Chae Sung-pil is an artist with skill and talent enough to melt cosmopolitans’ aesthetic sensibilities merely with his artistic achievements so far. His work, using natural earth as material, carries an infinite possibility of expansion, empowered by the recent “Dansaekhwa” (Korean monochrome painting) fever throughout the world. This observation is a response to the artist’s unique way of using materials and canvas. It is connected with various art-philosophical questions, such as "How does he acquire his pigment, and what significance does this have?" "How does he treat the canvas?" and "What meaning does that have?"
Let us first examine his materials. Chae uses earth and diverse other natural minerals as pigments. His research on earth and minerals of various properties has brought his work into a unique and sustainable realm. While majoring in Korean painting at the College of Fine Arts, Seoul National University, he accumulated techniques and knowledge on the refinement of natural materials and the production of pigments, based on the traditional sugan (earth pigment) coloring technique1). For this reason, his work stands on a base of intellect, transcending mere craftsmanship. Furthermore, it is what makes him different not only from other Dansaekhwa painters, but also from Minimal Art of the West.
Let us look at an example. The artist paints the background of his canvas multiple times with silver powder made from finely ground pearls. Then he applies filtered, refined, clear mud water to the surface. Here timing is crucial, as he lays the canvas flat on his studio floor before the earth water dries, and creates waterways on it with a powerful water hose, while also dripping earth water or Korean ink. Chae Sung-pil at work seems to move in larger strides than did Jackson Pollock in his dripping action. In contrast to Pollock's passive acts, using a brush to sprinkle paint from a can, or making multiple holes in the bottom of a can to drip paint on the canvas, Chae's active wielding of a large, broom-like brush to apply massive amounts of paint, and his shooting jets of water over the picture-plane with a hose similar to one used at a car-wash, make us feel we are watching a performance. The artist's appearance, as he walks around his studio in boots covered with dried paint, is one of complete immersion. The total amalgamation of pigment, earth, canvas and water, mediated by the body, and the artist's work method of creating waterways on the canvas while maintaining tight tension between the object and consciousness, without losing mental focus, is different from the automatism used by Pollock and his kind. Chae's way has to do with controlling the consciousness.
But at this point there is a twist. The artist holds the canvas with both hands as water streams down it, and tries to guide the flows of the water, but because he is standing behind the canvas, he does not know what is taking place on its surface. As he rotates the canvas in all directions to create the water channels, he can only assume, without concrete perception. By deviating from the traditional painting method that takes place in front of the picture-plane, and focusing on the back of the canvas, he subverts the existing conventions of painting. Chae, who claims that he "once painted a three-meter-wide work while holding it in his hands," is an artist who challenges the impossible.
III.
Chae Sung-pil's work, which may be summarized as nonchalant, carries a quality that mirrors nature. Nature is the matrix of his work, and his work is a ritual of devotion to the matrix, endlessly moving towards it. He calls nature his "mother." Born in Jindo, Jeonnam Province, the artist left his mother's embrace at an early age to pursue his education, and always missed her during his life away from home. That is why earth as a material has absolute significance for him. Earth2) as an incarnation of his mother, however, leaves its biological matrix and sets off on a long journey to the universe. His long journey from mother to earth, from earth to the universe, is actually a journey to the "world of universal beauty." In the semantic aspect, Chae's work is situated in the world of yin and yang, the foundation of Eastern philosophy. In addition, Eastern philosophy has attempted to explain the countless changes in cosmic phenomena through the Five Elements: water, wood, fire, earth and metal. Therefore, Chae's work, which is made by rotating (or moving around upon) the canvas around its center is not only a reduced model of the universe, but is an analogy of it as well.3)
At first glance, the artist's work reminds us of various crustal movements, because his paintings are about phenomena: they resemble certain phenomena of the Earth. His painting surface, which seems it can only be explained by borrowing such geological terminology as land splitting, elevating and sinking, is a diverse drama surrounding the flesh of the land. Like a volcano erupting lava, a long-awaited rain falling on dry land to form streams of water, or the skin of the land cracking and splitting after a long drought, the skins of the artist's paintings are full of land analogies. Is there a difference between East and West in terms of land? Is the land of the West rougher than that of the East? By no means. Land shows similar phenomena regardless of its regional location, eastern or western.
If there is a point that Chae wants to make, it is probably this: a world of beauty that can penetrate through the East and the West, the passion of wanting to reach that universal level, the reason for existence as an artist, the faith that East and West can communicate through paintings. These are the "borders"—in his own terms—that flow through the consciousness of the artist, who is carrying out international activities while himself traversing East and West.
IV.
Chae Sung-pil's works are stories about a universe embracing the land. His works, painted boldly in monochrome, are visual metaphors of all sorts of climate changes that take place on Earth, and the consequent dramas that unfold on the land, at sea and in the sky. After pouring different, unique colors of water, in shades of brown, blue and green acquired from mud and earth, onto a gigantic canvas, Chae sweeps them with a specially devised large, broom-like brush or pours water on the canvas, in an endless effort to gain natural, accidental effects.
The picture-plane that emerges through this series of processes is extremely "land-like," as I have repeatedly pointed out. It is cozy and original, like the landscape inside a mother's womb. For this artist who majored in Eastern Painting, "Giunsaengdong (chi and its vitality)" has long been the internalized principle and mechanism of his work. Immersion boosts the artist's energy, to turn the picture-plane into a world full of vitality. While painting, Chae pays little attention to the detailed effects. What is important to him is choosing the directions that the brush and the paths of water should go, and everything that takes place after that is left to coincidence.
And what is the result? Above, I compared Chae's painting to a drama presented by nature. Yes, his painting is a drama. It is a drama of nature, but also a drama of humans' seven emotions, expressed as joy, anger, sadness, pleasure, love, hatred and desire. There are smooth times, adversities, broad-mindedness, instantaneous explosions made by fragments breaking into small pieces, and the thrill as muddy water splashes in every direction to wet the land.
In order to reveal his intention in his painting, Chae sometimes intervenes physically. He holds the canvas with both hands and moves it back and forth to open the waterways so that the colored water can paint on its own. This is minimal intervention. The look resembles nature. The Korean word Jayeon (nature) literally means "being like that (然) on its own (自)." After all, water flows from high ground to low ground, and even solid rocks turn into soft dirt over time. With the principles of Yin, Yang, and the Five Elements in their backgrounds, Chae's paintings bring many opportunities for intuition in understanding not just humans, but also their events related to the land and to cosmic occurrences.4)
V.
As mentioned at the beginning of this text, Korea is no longer a marginal region in a corner of East Asia. Its culture and arts are marching forward powerfully, along with economic development. Thanks to Korean efforts, the world is now looking at the nation in a new light. The areas of music, cinema and sports have already given birth to many world-class celebrities. Of course, even without the mention specific names, we know that numerous artists have also emerged on the international art scene. Even irrespective of the so-called Dansaekhwa fever, Chae Sung-pil, who works in Paris and Korea, is without a doubt one of these excellent artists.
1) Chae Sung-pil's professional knowledge about natural materials is a result of his own research, but was also influenced by his college professor, artist Lee Jong-sang. "Illang" Lee Jong-sang, a well-known specialist on various murals including ancient tomb murals from the Goguryeo Dynasty, as well as on pigment painting materials, is also an artist, and has made numerous large-scale murals.
2) For Koreans, the land traditionally symbolizes the mother. Especially in rural society, as seen in the "gosurae" ritual, the land is an object of respect and worship. From the perspective that earth is the land, Chae Sung-pil's work is a long journey in search of cultural homogeneity and prototypicality. For this reason, his work differs from Western Minimal Art, which is the last stage of visual-centered culture.
3) Chae's paintings are in fact the kind that can be hung in any direction—even upside down or sideways. From the human viewpoint, this corresponds to the fact that there is no fixed position in nature. To set a position is the perspective of humans; nature has no set direction.
4) In some of Chae Sung-pil's paintings there is a recurrence of the Chinese character In (人), a figure that means "human."
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From the earth to the visible world
For several years, Chae Sung-pil has been trying to explore nature in his work. If one looks for a word that is the most complete sense of his work, "earth" is found without difficulty. For Chae, the earth is both model and source for a work.
The methodological basis of the production of work can be called "painting poiëtique", derived from the natural mode of production. In other words, his work begins with a regressive appreciation of nature, and the "earth" is used as a material, including a sentimental motif, and becomes a direct tool to express "space-image-subject".
The earth creates a space that he calls "the fundamental space". This space creates land, which in turn creates arithmetic and a realm of absolute fullness. In other words, the earth is a model and, more importantly, a prototype that allow Chae to develop a unique aesthetic.
... Another less visible material in his work is water. "Water" and "earth" complete his favorite magical techniques of "floating" and "drawing" through their inter-elemental and heterogeneous qualities. These elemental qualities, along with what he calls "symbol" and "essence," or the five elements of the East that form the source, or the four elements of the West, and the process are combined using traditional Eastern aesthetics and Western plastic theory...
......If you look a little closer at the images in his work (the landscapes of the fields, the greenery swaying in the wind, etc.), you can easily see that there is no artificial or imitated figure on his canvas. The things that can be seen on his canvas are the traces that "earth" and "water" that are naturally produce and are thus "drawn things". It is a natural image created with the help of basic substances. Except that from our perception, the figure combines with the image of nature and becomes a tree, a field, a surging sea, and land in the wind. Thus, Western modernity encounters the East's aesthetic tradition in a way that forms coincidences, not in the contemplation of appearances. It is an encounter that crosses borders in a space and transcends the boundaries between East and West cultures. Long periods of slow activity of nature, geological time, and moments of capturing movement overlap, including the cyclical recurrence (repetition) of natural phenomena. He seems to be searching for the source and essence of the canvas given to him.
Anne KERDRAON (Art Critic)