Dialogue between a Fisher and a Woodcutter - Min Byung-Jik (Chief Curator, Pohang Museum of Steel Art)
When looking at paintings by Kim
Min Joo, one even wonders whether we hitherto have not lived quite aridly and barrenly. May this be because the
shapes operate with a focus on images of flowing water? It is because, like
sheets of rain that quench the earth, the supple feelings
transmitted by liquid sensations are palpable. The unfolding of imagination that
differs from the mean reality of today, which is but arid and rigid, seems to
play a part as well. In the same vein, though
they, at a glance, seem to overlap with our daily lives, upon close inspection, the
stories depicted in the paintings likewise bear leisureliness, restfulness, and even flowing freedom that are a
far cry from our way of life, which is as brittle as can be, and so in
themselves make one feel magnanimous. Indeed, they prompt one even
to laugh a little. However, because these laughs are tensely related to what
surrounds reality of late instead of simply being unadulterated bursts, they should be seen as humor that
even exudes refinement.
At this point, “Dialogue between a Fisher
and a Woodcutter,” which Kim has borrowed as the titles of her works,
seems to act as a very useful context (background) for the paintings. While it
will amount only to a conversation between a mere fisher and a woodcutter when
interpreted literally, “Dialogue between a Fisher
and a Woodcutter” is an expression that reflects the way of life aimed at by
our ancestors in its entirety. For it is an expression
that refers to the scene where, away from a turbid and careworn reality, one
communes with mountains and rivers, discussing the principle and beauty of
nature. It implies the refined lives of the wise and the benevolent who,
distancing themselves from the mundane world, lead leisurely lives in comfortable retirement,
and the dialogues held in such a life likewise are called “pure conversations” (qingtan), referring to a conversational
pastime that, through questions and answers, pursues
the thought of Laozi (Laocius) and Zhuangzi, which may be seen as the
principle of the world. Because it is no
ordinary communication but an exploration of and a pursuit after the law of
nature, it is a philosophical discourse second to the
maieutics (maieutke) mentioned
early on by Socrates in the West. However, as even Socrates’
maieutics in fact began from the trivial questions of everyday life,
Kim, though not grand, likewise unfolds fragments of her certain insights into
the world through paintings. In other words, her works are new dialogues between a
fisher and a woodcutter set in a different era.
In particular, because the paintings submitted to the present exhibition reveal
meticulous insights into life in an uncommon and even more compact manner than
in her previous works, the artist seems to be reciting sundry
conversations with the world and calmly conveying them, face to face with her
paintings. In other words, like the
scholar-gentlemen of yore, the artist, too, with
the careworn reality of the world behind her, styles herself a “fisher” (yufu) or a “fishing recluse” (yuyin) and maintains a certain distance
from the world, looking back and reflecting on
this through her works and holding a long dialogue with the world. In the end, she will create
her own organized thought through the long journey of questioning and responding
to herself (and her paintings), at times projecting the artistic
imagination created in the process on the diverse shapes in her works and repeatedly
bypassing and omitting fragments of invariably complicated thought about the
world. Seen thus, in Kim’s case, one wonders whether a considerable weight of
meaning is not placed on the process or act of painting itself. Of course, artists are bound
to have unique painting methods of their own so that, in addition to the
transmission and revelation of something through paintings,
the act of painting itself can serve as a means in life of calming one’s
mind and playing with one’s senses. Likewise, the
process of painting itself holds an uncommon meaning for Kim. In that respect, even
though she has created paintings that feel quite different from traditional East Asian
paintings from the past because of her unique style, she
nevertheless seems to be accepting wholly certain virtues of traditional East Asian
thought in that she endeavors to bring about an agreement between the act of
painting and mental and physical praxis. For, she unravels
complicated problems by producing paintings of her own and, through paintings
to which her thought and imagination have thus been added, prompts one to
empathize with the differences in and joy of thought. In the end, the artist’s
“dialogue” may be termed the artist’s unique way of starting a conversation
with the world through or with paintings, and that slow and leisurely
conversational style is removed from the ordinary conversational styles of
everyday life so that it feels as though one could gladly respond. This
is because not only the subdued paintings of green tones overall but
also the artist’s imagination, which
appears frequently and even borders on the outrageous, play a part in such joyful dialogues.
As with earlier works, many
parts of Kim’s works in the present exhibition are related to images
of fish and the water that they wade in. Often, the fish on the canvas form one
body with human shapes, and the underwater world likewise overlap with the
landscapes of reality in diverse ways. It feels as though the artist seeks to
skirt around and to overcome the world of suffocating and solid reality
flowingly, through the images of swimming that water holds. Titles of
past exhibitions such as “Paintings of the Happiness of Fish” and “Paradise of
Fish” seem to be related as well because they seem to reveal an
orientation to ideal situations or spaces where leisureliness and comfortable
rest exist. In addition to these, a mermaid (half-fish,
half-human) who seems to be Kim’s alter ego often freely roams about that quiet
space, thus gently showing the artist’s discomfort with the world from a
certain distance. As did our ancestors, who
sought to live in mountains and rivers in quiet nature, her critique of the
world will be adequate even without being direct. For, at times, it is
possible to overcome the ways of an illiberal reality as much as one wishes
with an implicit tune or desire for the
freedom of an active life alone. Such sentiments expand gradually into specific
spaces of reality and even occupy quotidian spaces, with images of rivers and lakes
(jianghu) infiltrating
spaces in not only traditional Korean houses but also ordinary
houses and buildings and scenes from East Asian landscapes overlying not only pleasure
boats but also massive cruise ships from the mundane world. The
artist’s delightful imagination thus alights on and settles
down in real spaces, but the result is by no means excessive or
ponderous. She does not seem to have wished to exclude even
the joy of the meticulous forms in her works. Even the titles of her paintings
seem to be aimed at transmitting such feelings, for they reflect an
orientation to a life of leisure and comfortable retirement: A Moment of Leisure, Living without Ado, Rowing a Boat, Life Is
Beautiful, To the Land of Hope, The Memory of a Journey, and Excursions to Scenic Landscapes. The
motifs of ships and travel seem to carry important semantic weight
in Kim’s works. They perhaps are manifestations of her
frank if implicit desire to free herself from the mundane world and to live in retirement
on or by mountains, rivers, and lakes, aiming at the leisurely beauty of worldly
affairs. That in itself will already be a journey-like
life, and the artist may have wished in a relaxed manner to reveal, through her
paintings, the desire for a free life, swimming around the world as if
traveling.
The works submitted to the
present exhibition, however, seem to differ somewhat from previous ones in their
overall ways of speaking or attitudes toward such a quiet and leisurely life. This
is because they, with the addition of more active actions and
gestures on Kim’s part, reflect more graceful and
therefore longer breaths. Might there have been a certain insight? For far more
leisurely and even transcendent attitudes toward her relationship with the
world are palpable. A large-minded spirit that
may even contain the entire world even in a net with holes, heedless of whether
she is catching fish or the world, even reveals a certain leisureliness before
laughter. In addition, Kim seems
to seek to free even the mermaid on which she has projected her own
freedom, back in its abode, the underwater world. For, though some of the
mermaids retain their human shapes, also visible are process
through which they return to their original piscine images. And the movements
of such transformations are as free as can be. Far more leisurely toward the
world, such fragments of the artist’s thought are conveyed in
an even more direct manner through small ink drawings. This leads, once again,
to the thought that, at times, small drawings may be more appropriate for
gathering complicated thoughts and unfolding such pieces of
thought in a concentrated way. While the composition of the entire canvas seems
more solid than before, the room for movement available to the forms of thought
spread out in the paintings seems larger than earlier. This seems to be due not
so much to an exaggeration of images as to an enlargement of the breadth of
thought. Thus repeating movements, at times large and at times small, thought
surely proceeds toward the diverse internal conditions of the world. Likewise,
the artist fishes for the world with a more large-minded attitude, as large as
the depth and breadth of the nets that she casts in her paintings. Perhaps fishers’
boasts that actually catching something is unimportant is no exaggeration. Kim’s
works are dotted with anglers who are not even interested in fishing and scenes
where one even draws water from the depths of a lake with a completely empty
net. These are moments that lead not to a sense of irony but even to the
leisureliness of a large-minded life. In addition, in small
drawings, one can find images of fish escaping through torn
nets, clear images of torn nets that put to shame the hands grabbing them, and
images of mermaids freely transforming into fish (or perhaps vice versa) and
swimming. Eye-catching paintings hold images where thoughts
that fill the head become trees and, in turn, forests, as if one were returning
to nature. Does the artist mean to let them alone as they are (ziran)? It is as though she does not
care even if the forests turn into lakes and, once more, into trees. For, in
the end, all will be but small changes in that vast nature. Such attitudes at times
overlap with her actual reality as well. A
leisureliness by which even incomplete, failed drawings are exhibited,
crumpled, in fishing nets and even smudges left on the canvas are not heeded will
be attitudes manifesting such points. In other words, certain complete results
are not all, bu every single process in itself has meaning. As do our lives. So,
paintings will be no exceptions. The countless thoughts that the artist must
have undergone to produce her works, too, will have been immensely precious
parts of her journey of life. She thus seems to have realized the virtue of
life that the bottomless and endless agonies about the world are things not to
be resolved each time through solitary struggles but to be resolved slowly,
even enjoying the process. Or she may have realized forever that she
must let such torments return to their places as parts of broader affairs of
nature. Perhaps for such reasons, even paintings depicting living spaces
infiltrated by landscape images, witnessed in previous works as well, seem to
be naturalized in the optimized condition of tenement houses that, as “resting
homes,” exude a more quotidian feeling in the present
exhibition. Should one say that Kim has allowed them to return to nature or settled
down in a more realistic manner? For they seem not to be the distant
paradise in traditional East Asian paintings from the past but to
have been reborn as more naturalized landscapes from reality. A more
mature and settled expressiveness will have played a part as well.
In addition to the refinement of
plain thought held by traditional East Asian
paintings, Kim’s paintings thus hold even the freedom and joy
of forms transmitted by the sensibilities of today. Hidden in every nook and
cranny of her works are not only the wit of life that she has learned by
experience in the world but also games created by delightful imagination. To
traverse across and to distort the shapes of standardized images freely, one
must possess the strength of stable drawing that can buttress it and, above
all, the breadth and rhythm of the free transformation of the artistic
imagination. In other words, a freedom of expression that can actuate the strength of
forms and images must be accompanied. Even Kim’s style, which, at a glance, can
seem unfamiliar, does not strike one as so remote probably because, in addition
to the power of her strokes, which
can govern the transformations of the shapes to a certain degree, the logic of
the meaning held by those transformations makes full use of consistent
pragmatics. Implying a frustrating and rigid reality with a free world
penetrated by flowing liquid and borrowing the titles of traditional East Asian
paintings to unfold the artist’s orientation to a life in comfortable
retirement will be such aspects. Here, the traversal across the
human and the animal, unfamiliar forms in irregular spaces, and phases of
transformation that even border on the outrageous themselves are not truly
problematic. For, after all, what is important is the strength and effect of
the expressions created by the artist’s thought and imagination.
Of course, debates on whether or not they
are contemporary transformations of traditional East Asian paintings, too,
will be age-old. Kim thus freely, as do young artists today, seems
to exude the diverse strengths of her sensibilities through paintings and to
seek to advance toward a certain refinement of life that is more leisurely, old
yet invariably new.