CULTURE SHARE: UES Minhwa Exhibition

Upper East Side

Exhibition & Reception….

Although we could not attend the Reception…. because we were busy with recordings for our Holiday and Christmas season…. we were able to get to the Exhibition!!!! YAY!!!!

(VIDEO PROVIDED BY KATE OH GALLERYKorean Folk Traditions (Minhwa) exhibition showcases both traditional and contemporary folk paintings. The Exhibit features a total of 6 artists: 2 artists who are based in South Korea, and 4 artists who are based in New York. Additionally, 15 Rutger’s students, who enrolled in Kate Oh Trabulsi’s Minhwa course at Rutgers New Jersey State University.

Meekyung Shin and Sangchul Shin are the 2 artists from South Korea. Meekyung Shin won the Grand Prize at the Joseon Folk Painting Contest and will be exhibiting works that she created in relation to Riot Games. Sangchul Shin’s work physically dismantle and recombine Hangul (Korean characters) consonants and vowels. The four NY based artists participating in this show are:

Seongmin Ahn

Hyunjoo Cho

Min Kim

Kate Oh Trabulsi

Haesun Jung’s Korea Traditional Dance Company will be showcasing a special performance on the day of the reception. It will be a Tal (Mask) dance with a Korean traditional performance that was recently designated by UNESCO as an “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity Performance.” Tal was a topic that was covered in Korean Folk Traditions class at Rutgers New Jersey State University during the Fall Semester 2022

(VIDEOS PROVIDED BY KATE OH GALLERY)

The Pictorial Representation of Characters

            Historically speaking, characters carry distinct importance in many East Asian cultures, influencing not only the particularities of the language, but often the conceptual understandings of the cultural entities themselves. In detail, Hanja characters in Korean, which originated from Chinese, are pictographic representations, which means that the words are constituted as pictograms, rather than spelled out with letters of an alphabet. And although Hanja characters are very infrequently used in today's Korean society, at least in everyday life, they still command literary and aesthetic value.

            And because of this artistic significance, there is a beautiful tradition to create paintings that display the meaning of characters pictographically. This is indeed a fascinating way of conceptual representation, which is both particular as well as universal. It is particular because the depiction of the characters is specific to the language involved; and at the same time, it is also universal because when rendered in a painting, the graphical representation can convey the meaning to all audiences regardless of their familiarity with the language. Thus, in a sense, it is the best of both worlds.   

            The Korean Folk Traditions Exhibition gives us a wonderful proof of this dual concept. In this show, which includes both Korean artists and students of a Korean Traditions class at Rutgers University, displays paintings which are cleverly grouped around the theme of characters, conveying great technical balance and polish. Paintings of stunning pictographs are revealed, one after another, often in exquisite detail, and both the rendition of the characters and the graphical transformation flow organically and brilliantly.

            For instance, in a composition by Kate Oh, there is a rendition of the character for faithfulness, or loyalty, which contains a radical of the word “heart” at the bottom. Graphically speaking, it is a character that shows flowing harmony and intrigue at the same time. The radical for heart is ingeniously executed with three animals: clam, fish, and shrimp, which together represent auspices of the concept of the heart. These auspicious animals all surround a central black stroke of the heart character which stand like a sturdy trunk of a unshakable tree, representing quite graphically the central concept of loyalty.

            In addition, the rest of the upper part of the character showcases a beautiful dragon, which is of importance in the East Asian cultural tradition. This brightly scaled dragon winds around the central stroke of the character and, as if turning in its powerful gaze, harks downward, while its long tail emerges in an innovative swing out of the mouth of the fish. This remarkable emergence shows the great continuity inherent in the concept of loyalty – a continuity which can be said of all the paintings of the organic manifestation of this exhibit.

By B. S. Alexander, PhD

to purchase any of the pieces - please reach out directly to Kate Oh’s Gallery: https://www.kateohgallery.com/