Disparaging the traditional runs rampant. This is nothing new, which is severe especially in fine arts sector. We had given up a large part of traditional art, but calligraphy has diminished to the regrettable genre that is not properly accepted as art. It is very much regrettable that Calligraphy is continued by the general public only as a hobby.
Calligraphy had been on the centerpiece of our traditional art. And at the late Lee Dynasty, the new sense of landscape painting had been popular, which is adopted by the technique from calligraphy. A calligrapher named Kim Jung Hee, aka Chusa developed his proprietary typeface reminiscent of a modern abstract painting that his name was known to China, origin of the letter.
Calligraphy, the oldest oriental form of language, is an art to show an implicit form or symbolic sign extracted from a natural shape or reasonable means.
During the 19th century, our Korean painters were struggling to seek the new way from the elements of Chinese calligraphy.
In other words, they exerted to depict the spirituality contained in the letter, that is, to capture the aura of each letter for the painting by the way of seeking the shape beauty of the character or an effort to draw the painting by calligraphic touch that was dubbed as 'the spirit of writing' or 'spirit of the text' by art historians.
The artistry of calligraphy attracted attention of the Western art so that the new wave of Tachisme was the one of the abstract movements that had sprang up in Europe and America in the 1950. It came from a French word 'Tache' meaning 'stain', placing much value on the free brushstrokes by the painter.
Tachisme, a branch of the Abstract Expressionism, is characterized by the power of touch, rough brush strokes and dots dripping from the brush. Work is done instantly with a brush on Chines drawing paper as each letter is written. It is impossible for an artist without skilled hand movements and intuition that can fill the screen on the spur of the moment. That is a certain style of calligraphy in which intuitive attitude is adopted by the Western culture.
The essence of Tachisme comes from the brush touch of the artist like that of calligraphy. That's why it is called 'calligraphic abstract' meaning abstract painting followed by the technique of calligraphy. Park Taegyun belongs to this type of artist. In his works, power of brush touch is outstanding and characterized by overwhelming trace of the brush, which does not belong to the genre of the 'calligraphic abstract.' The reason is that his intuition is not found to depict with one brush touch. In his work, the background is first created in various ways and brush touch is superimposed.
His skills to manipulate expression technique with various effects are contributed to his experience of time. And he is the professional artist for livelihood who sticks to his own style of work much related to printing technique, which paved the way to master the visual effects widely.
Among them, one subtle printing technique is to mix the profound colors that no one can parallel, which embodies the ground of color in order to produce the effects with mysterious feel.
Another visual effect of his work that attract our attention is a printing technique done by a computer, which magnifies the specific part of the subject. He might use the silk-screen printing with dot pattern that gives us the expression of optical abstract painting.
His abstract image of the character with ground of various visual effects is differentiated from abstract paintings that was popular during the 20th century.
Because his works show us both abstractionism and expressionism at the same time, which is linked to abstract expressionism, I can say.
In his recent works, Park is interested in focusing on the meaning of formative arts trait and shape that Korean Alphabets have. This kind of experimental attitude is much more interesting as it is the step toward new exit for the abstract paintings.
What his work attracts great attention is that he turns his eyes to calligraphy tradition and its modernization. What's better, his subject is not Chinese letter but Korean Hangul, which is the essential part of art with its identity that can survive this century.
Jeon, jun-yeop painter
