Page 7 - 하영준 展 2023. 6. 7 – 6. 13 갤러리라메르

Outside Form

By Park Young-taik (Kyonggi University Professor & Art Critic)

Ha Young-jun’s paintings feature forms hinting at pine
trees, bamboo, plum blossoms, and roses alongside
Hangeul(Korean alphabet) calligraphy. Pictures and letters
are woven into one, wet the scenes like rain, and plays of
deep soaked ink and free-flowing brushstrokes surge like
waves. Ha’s painting and calligraphy have reawakened the
tradition of literati painting, asserting the formative sense
of the present times.

Literati painting is East Asian traditional painting that
secured its creative artistry within formality and underlined
the facet of self-protection. Since modern times, when
traditional society had collapsed, literati painting was
dismissed as a sort of intellectual hobby or pleasure for
깨달음 Ⅵ 45x34.5cm 화선지에 수묵
the leisure class that seemed divorced from reality and the
trends of the time. Then, it was reevaluated in the 1930s when Western supremacy was weakened. This was because the expression
of subjectivity in Western modernist art was matched with the subjectivism of literati painting, and the latest painting trend was
found in the traditional literati painting of the past.

The discourse on literati painting that emerged during the modern period is rooted in the typical Eastern discourse of the 20th
century, which attempted to discover modern values in non-Western and traditional elements. This discourse continues to be of
great significance and is frequently discussed in modern Korean art history as a means of erasing the remnants of Japanese colonial
rule. It seems that contemporary Korean art considers this discourse on literati painting as a way to express its identity.

Ha's work seeks to explore the potential of literati painting. His work is characterized by the meaning of the painting and the painter's
intention expressed through lines, abstraction, and expressivity. He emphasizes and focuses on the linear rhythm and form derived

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