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Lot Essay
"Paper has to be alive and choppy. Canvas work also refers to humidity. It is like a pulse and a breath. The picture thus moves choppily. The final result is not the target of my work but to present the process of how it is done."
- Chung Sang-Hwa
Since the early 1970s, Chung Sang-Hwa has been developing his own method of 'rip' and 'fill,' creating numerous grids with horizontal, diagonal and vertical lines and adding depth to the flat surface of the canvas. Chung first spreads the mixture of kaolin clay, water and glue on the entire canvas evenly and waits until the thick paint is completely dried. Then he removes the canvas from the wood stretcher and draws grids of horizontal and vertical lines on the reverse of the canvas. After this procedure, Chung carefully folds it along his drawing lines and rips off the paint from the chosen girds. The bare grids are then filled with multiple layers of acrylic paint. Chung repeats the actions of 'rip' and 'fill' until he finds a perfect harmony of reduction and addition.
Chung's monochromatic planes successfully achieve infinite temporality and universality through the meditative repetition. The excellent mastery of this dexterous technique and of mind discipline during the repetitive actions of this painstakingly time consuming process are unique to Chung. Such qualities make his canvas to be an infinite space beyond a mere formal geometric picture, encouraging the viewer to sink into deep meditation. In Chung's mesmerizing works, as Korean art critic Chae Ok-Yang stated, "A colour takes on different nuances according to how much is used and the uneven quality of each surface. Chung displays nuance of great diversity instead of pursuing simplicity through his monotone planes." Lóránd Hegyi, one of the foremost European curators and art historians, once commented on Chung's art, "The closer the viewer's interest in the visual details of the painting's sensual surface, in the painter's subtle interventions, and in the pictorial and physical methods he uses to structure his work, the closer they come to another meditative and emotional domain of the artistic process, in other words, poetry, the genuinely poetic strategy of the artwork."
Chung emphasizes the importance of revealing the process in his works. In this way, the process itself becomes the meaning for the work and the tradition of Asian literati that emphasizes the spiritual cleansing and mind discipline is transmitted into Chung's meditative painting. To Chung who had lived and worked more than three decades in Japan and France until 1992 when he decided to permanently return to his motherland, his whole life was an artistic journey to find a new form of abstract art that can construct his own sense of identity.
- Chung Sang-Hwa
Since the early 1970s, Chung Sang-Hwa has been developing his own method of 'rip' and 'fill,' creating numerous grids with horizontal, diagonal and vertical lines and adding depth to the flat surface of the canvas. Chung first spreads the mixture of kaolin clay, water and glue on the entire canvas evenly and waits until the thick paint is completely dried. Then he removes the canvas from the wood stretcher and draws grids of horizontal and vertical lines on the reverse of the canvas. After this procedure, Chung carefully folds it along his drawing lines and rips off the paint from the chosen girds. The bare grids are then filled with multiple layers of acrylic paint. Chung repeats the actions of 'rip' and 'fill' until he finds a perfect harmony of reduction and addition.
Chung's monochromatic planes successfully achieve infinite temporality and universality through the meditative repetition. The excellent mastery of this dexterous technique and of mind discipline during the repetitive actions of this painstakingly time consuming process are unique to Chung. Such qualities make his canvas to be an infinite space beyond a mere formal geometric picture, encouraging the viewer to sink into deep meditation. In Chung's mesmerizing works, as Korean art critic Chae Ok-Yang stated, "A colour takes on different nuances according to how much is used and the uneven quality of each surface. Chung displays nuance of great diversity instead of pursuing simplicity through his monotone planes." Lóránd Hegyi, one of the foremost European curators and art historians, once commented on Chung's art, "The closer the viewer's interest in the visual details of the painting's sensual surface, in the painter's subtle interventions, and in the pictorial and physical methods he uses to structure his work, the closer they come to another meditative and emotional domain of the artistic process, in other words, poetry, the genuinely poetic strategy of the artwork."
Chung emphasizes the importance of revealing the process in his works. In this way, the process itself becomes the meaning for the work and the tradition of Asian literati that emphasizes the spiritual cleansing and mind discipline is transmitted into Chung's meditative painting. To Chung who had lived and worked more than three decades in Japan and France until 1992 when he decided to permanently return to his motherland, his whole life was an artistic journey to find a new form of abstract art that can construct his own sense of identity.