Myth of our time

Imaginary landscape in the memory from optical illusion ● At the 14th to 16th centuries, Western art achieved a revolutionary change and a rapid development because 'the interest about looking' occurred. This time called Renaissance by historians. Weltanschauung of those days had changed from God-centered philosophy to Man-centered philosophy, and people began to set eyes on every phenomenon of the nature with humanism point of view. The power of reason, observation, and judgment from the questions of 'why', 'how', and 'what' brought the advancement of science. In this scientific age, artists started to study on the new painting technique to represent visible world in their paintings. In return for this, Perspective appeared. The invention of Perspective brought the expanses of space, and aided in developing various ways of realistic technique in painting. There are a sense of dimension from light and darkness, matière, volume, and composition using a vanishing point. Photography realized the desire to masterfully represent visible world in a scientific way. The advent of photography allowed painters to expand their eyes on invisible world such as feeling, unconsciousness, ideology and science. These changes occurred in the early 20th century of Western art history.

정영한_우리時代 神話 Myth of our time_캔버스에 유채_116.7×80.3cm_2010

정영한_우리時代 神話 Myth of our time_캔버스에 유채_53×72.7cm_2010

정영한_우리時代 神話 Myth of our time_캔버스에 유채_50×72.7cm_2010

There is no sea in his seascape. ● Photography took over 'representation of real world' as original boundary of painting, at the beginning of 20th century, new territory of painting brought the water to photographer's mouth. Thus, 'Hyper-realism' was found in painting to harmonize with photography. It was in the late 1960s, America. Especially, 'Photorealism' is popular technique among Korean Young artists, they use photographic image on canvas with photo sensitizer and refine their painting by brush or air spray. Although Hyper-realism is a compromise between photography and painting but it seems like to painting is subordinate to photography. What makes photography gets into step with painting is representation of visible world so real but they have conflicting beat. That is illusion of space. Photography cannot represent the depth of space as painting. In this sense, Chung, Young Han's painting deserves attention. He manages the planer characteristic of photography and cubic effect of painting cleverly to maximize the optical illusion. He uses only brush as a fundamental way of painting but he makes a photographic effect in his painting without any brush mark. It would be called 'photography is taken by painting technique'.

정영한_우리時代 神話 Myth of our time_캔버스에 유채_53×72.7cm_2010

정영한_우리時代 神話 Myth of our time_캔버스에 유채_53×72.7cm_2010

정영한_우리時代 神話 Myth of our time_캔버스에 유채_72.7×116.7cm_2009

Landscape is a background of Chung's painting. There are cityscapes or seascapes. Recently, seascape is main factor in his painting. He draws various looks of sea, for example, placid waters of a clear day, shinning seascape, and high sea with a stormy wind. In his painting, surfs crush against rock or waves come into the wonderful shore softly. That is widespread image of seascape. However, there is no emotional expression in seascape of Chung. There is no sound of the waves, bloody smell of sea, and no fresh air. That is stuffed sea like digital seascape. Actually, he hasn't been to sea for his painting. So, his seascape is an ideal sea. Everyone has an image of sea in one's mind and that is in his painting. He collects some seascape photography on internet then he uses the image for his own. This process aims to represent a sea as people saw in photography. That's why there is no sense of dimension and no emotional expression in his seascape. Why he stick to traditional painting technique to show the photographic images on the canvas? The answer would be said that is a self-reflection about the optical illusion of Western art over the past 500 years. He would like to make sure that the illusion of space in plane painting is a pure fabrication. Even if artist depicts very lifelike painting, that is an image on a plane canvas and there exists only figment of artist's imagination. This is why he exerts himself to express an honest planar character of photography. Imaginary world with familiar images is strange to us because that is not a real exist. Chung gives a chance to confirm this unfamiliar feeling by his painting technique. He draws kinesthetic sense-maximizing images on the plane seascape from frozen image of photography and kinesthetic sense-maximizing images. Most of objects are flowers, and there is a picturesque description with loud color and fine effects of light and shade. The flowers are giant or distorted and sometimes they are flying in the air like falling blossoms. This scene makes optical illusion such as floating flowers on large scale printed photography with seascape. After all, we can get a sight of imaginary world in between two images which are very lifelike exists. By doing this, Chung expects to achieve his own imaginary world by optical illusion in painting, and that is a kind of virtual reality like digital interface. We live in this world. ■ Chun, Jun Yeup

Vol.20101102c | 정영한展 / CHUNGYOUNGHAN / 鄭暎翰 / painting