JB Life January 2017

ARTS ESSAY
By VIKKI CHAN
JB Life Contributing Writer
26
Early this November, I had the opportunity to check
out a pretty cool coffee shop in Iksan called Misulgwan
Café, known to be the place where you can enjoy
coffee (or other beverages) as well as observe intriguing
pieces of art. Whilst I was there, Misulgwan Café was hosting
a multidisciplinary art exhibition focusing on “Human
Nature”.
The owner, Sang-Rin Park, is an art enthusiast as well as
a professional fashion designer. He loves to use his coffee
shop’s space voluntarily as a great canvas to promote events
and artwork. Currently, he has a strong interest in displaying
a mix of expat and Korean artists’ work, demonstrating
a “new culture” in the Korean art gallery industry. This perspective
seems rare.
The exhibit presented ten artists’ artwork. Seven artists
were expats, three of them Korean. As mentioned before,
this was a multidisciplinary exhibition: each artist had a very
different approach in terms of style and perspective towards
the theme, “Human Nature.”
The first things I saw once I entered were four clear plastic
boxes, and in each box there was a different set of red flowers.
For example, one box contained roses; another one contained
red poppies. I found out later that the title of this display is
called “Plant Abuse (I’m Flower Murder),” created by Yun
Jin, a Wonkwang University student majoring in Philosophy.
She expressed that all living things should be treated equally,
and keeping the flowers in boxes was degrading their value
as living objects. In addition to this, Yun Jin contributed two
paintings related to the relationships between people. After
viewing her work, I found that she liked to use bold colours
to express her concept.
Later on, I saw a painting consisting of different-colored
dots illustrating a number of dream-catchers on a black background.
The artist behind this was Mi-Yeon Jin, a graduate
from Wonkwang University. The artist aimed to make viewers
feel at ease when looking at the artwork. Similarly, Jin’s
“Leave Your Nightmare to Me” expressed that everyone
sleeps and dreams.
Another Korean artist, Tae-Gwan Lee, created five pieces
that I believe presented strong masculinity. He defined that
each piece expressed a different atmosphere of how humans
behave with their movements and gestures. He didn’t really
go into detail about each work; however, the interesting part
of his work was that we as viewers could make various interpretations
about them. Lee used different materials for each
piece, displaying his capability to use a variety of media.
Next there were the foreign artists, whom we see more
rarely.
First, Sarah Hodgkiss, a British street artist and illustrator,
created a series of four portraits. In Korea, she specializes in
drawing portraits, and in regards to the exhibit’s theme, Human
Nature, she chose to focus on the inner strength of women.
She believes that in Korean society there seems to be a set
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ARTWORK: [ABOVE] Original Human Nature
logo designed by Jason Vlasak.
[TOP RIGHT] A multimedia piece by Sarah Vetter.
[BOTTOM RIGHT] Hanji craft works
by Natalie Thibault (left) and part of
an installation by Bonnie Cunningham (right).
[Photos by ANJEE DISANTO]
Jeonbuk Life 27
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