2002. 9. 4 - 18

Flower, vanishing or traces

Flower is beautiful for its ephemeral quality. We would not appreciate flower's beauty if it were omnipresent or everlasting, Instead, the flower, like the heyday of youth, is beautiful because it is soon gone.

The joy of receiving a bouquet of flowers is as big as embracing the sky. However, that joy is soon fraught with fear: how long the flowers will last... they will certainly eventually die. That is why the flower is so beautiful: it brings with it both loss and distress from the first meeting. With the flower, artists often feel a sense of responsibility: to capture its beauty forever; to encapsulate momentary beauty for all eternity. However, the flower's beauty cannot be captured like a prisoner. If beauty is held forever in painting, that is not the flower's beauty but rather the beauty of painting. The flower's beauty is free from any net of possession.

Ha sang-rim paints the flower. So, is she another hunter trying to capture the beauty of the flower for all eternity? No, she is not. She is not a painter who paints the beauty of the flower; rather, she paints the flower's freedom.

The flower she paints is not at the moment of full, beautiful bloom. Instead, her flower is the dried and decolorized flower. Or the flower whose petals have all fallen and gone so that it remains only as a trace in our memory. Ha sang-rim's flowers do not have any colors; the color is taken out of the flower. Is the flower without color still a flower? Her flower, however, is constantly evaporating itself of color. Or it exists in space as thin echoes traced by simple lines. This is how her flower releases itself. It gives itself freedom.

The meaning of freedom is self-existence. Its existence is not prescribed or defined by anyone else; instead, it is self-defined. Let's take a moment to consider the beauty of freedom and woman. There is a common, popular conception about a beautiful woman. Especially in the present era of mass media, there exists a uniform conception of a beautiful woman as a 'supermodel.' The closer a woman meets this standard, the more beautiful she is considered to be. As long as women follow this prescribed conception of beauty, their freedom is taken from them, because they are allowing themselves to be defined by others. Freedom cannot exist under this preconception of beauty. Rather, freedom releases itself from the perceptive eyes of others.

Ha sang-rim's flower is free because her flower is free from the demanding gaze of others. Her flower does not exist only for its own beauty; it exists, like all living things, for its own nature. Foolish is the person who wants to keep her beauty forever, although she was once beautiful. Foolish, too, is the person who wants to keep his power forever, although he was once powerful. As with all natural, living things, there is a time of birth and growth; just as there is a time of beauty and death. Such is the meaning of all things in nature. Ha sang-rim's flower knows this meaning, so it adjusts itself accordingly. It permits itself the freedom to keep moving, and just running without trying to read someone else's mind. Being free like this, her decolorized flower, the memory of which remains as lines, is beautiful. The flower which knows both going forward and backward and also accepts going back, is truly beautiful.

Ha sang-rim's flower paintings are impressive because the backgrounds are colorful--red, blue, or gold-- while the flowers themselves are devoid of color or delineated with simple lines. Of course there are some gray and off-white backgrounds, but the basic tone remains in contrast to the flowers. The colorless flower is the color of vanishing, while the vibrant background color suggests something permanent. The background color shows the nature of the world which is immutable and everlasting, long after the flower and I are gone.

The flowers of spring may think like this: the world must end, too, if we, who bring color and beauty to the world, were gone. How can the world survive and go on once our beauty is gone? In reality, however, when flowers are gone, when spring is gone, the world does not even move. The world is still actively alive and full of energy. Right. The world is permanent and lasts forever. Like the world, the painting's background is a stage upon which appears a momentary hero. The hero is the flower, the human being. They continuously bloom, one after another, and then are gone, while the background exists forever to accommodate them. Flower is nonexistence, and the background is existence.

Ha sang-rim creates her art for things whose destiny is vanishing. For those whom there is freedom in vanishing, she grabs a brush. Her art is a kind of dedication and eulogy. Other images in Ha sang-rim's painting, including stains of waterdrops and ink, some smeared, spread, and dried, and also stains simplified as a silhouette that remains in memory of trees, are images that have drawn back from the peak moment. Traces of waterdrops, their stains and their waves: these are what she paints as main heroes. Her heroes are in the process of vanishing, and in so doing, validate their prior existence. They are the nonexistence of traces and memories; they are echoes. Did General MacArthur say, "Old soldiers don't die, they are just gone?" Likewise, traces and echoes are forever. True greatness and real beauty do not bear eternal existence; rather, they bear eternal traces and eternal echoes. Freedom is the width and depth of these echoes. Such is the world that Ha sang-rim constantly pursues with her brushes.

- Yi, Joo-Heon (Art Critic)