Symbolism in Poetry by Lacquer Painting
Yongwoo Lee | Art Academic, Professor at Shanghai University
Chae Rimm continuously
worked with lacquer before it became a new form of contemporary art. Creating a
new form of contemporary art was a great challenge that required tremendous
tenacity and extensive experimentation because it was impossible to achieve by
merely changing forms of work or developing new lacquer painting techniques.
First of all, the artist should prove that lacquer painting is an art genre
that can be elevated to the level of non-functional discussion from functional
art through her work, and it should transcend the complex conceptual definition
and boundaries of contemporary art. What is more, theories of contemporary art
tend to delve into experimentation and the zeitgeist with focus on process as well as the political, social, and
cultural independence of the work rather than functional perfection.
Chae Rimm’s ‘lacquer painting’ is firmly rooted in
tradition, but it is also evolving into something wholly original and ever more
diverse. Her art attracts great attention for her elegant handling of lacquer,
traditional craftsmanship underpinned by perfect technique of meticulous
jewelry design, and her willingness to bring crafts and contemporary art
together as one. If contemporary art is provocative fusion cuisine created by
joining experimental, challenging concepts and subversive values of the
material and the non-material, behavior, and the avant-garde, Chae Rimm’s art
is poetic, emotional landscape of savory flavor created by lacquer painting.
To be sure, we must look into Chae Rimm’s art more
deeply and duly understand that it is contemporary art based on craft tradition
and technique. Even so, it is a fresh shock to see lacquer painting as
contemporary art. She seems to be advocating strongly against narrowly defining
crafts merely as traditional art or products by master craftsmen, which is what
those who promote crafts today tend to do. Her tireless ambition and
originality show where functionally important traditional art comes into
confluence with non-functional contemporary art.
Chae Rimm’s ‘lacquer painting’ conjures up the matière effect of
oil painting that was prominent in the early 20th century. Referred
to as ‘aesthetic interpretation’ of canvas, matière work began when artists found that many changes could occur on the
surface of canvas, paper, and the like used as the primary material for
2-dimensional painting, depending on the quality of material. Artists can give oil painting a unique
texture by applying paints thickly or thinly depending on the nature of oil
paint and by applying the touch of the brush in different ways. Accordingly, matière
can be seen as the end-result of techniques that can be used for materials in
appropriate ways, and the aesthetic effect varies as much as the intentions of
each artist. The texture of the 2-dimensional surface of Chae Rimm’s lacquer
painting projects extremely varied and refined sense of beauty created by
adjusting the thickness and depth based on the functional perfection of lacquer
painting. This unique effect on surface alone creates a variety of landscapes,
and the diverse spectrum of colors reveals lyrical sensibility.
Diverse surfaces created by applying layer upon layer
of lacquer over and over again acquire unique color, luster, and shine. Such
effect is brighter and more provocative than that created by using a brush on
canvas. The effect of matière on canvas shows the beauty of incomplete
color sense emitted from the liquid ingredients of paints. In contrast, the
vague luster produced from lacquer painting has a dreamlike, provocative,
painterly quality reminiscent of the Sfumato technique used by Leonardo da Vinci. The curved lines seemingly moving upwards riding on
green, dark blue, red and black recall the upward strokes of calligraphy in a
cursive style.
Chae Rimm confirms the fact that the surface becomes
extremely diverse and exudes an uncommon air of mystery when techniques of raw
lacquer, refined lacquer, and refined black lacquer—which are used to produce
lacquerware inlaid with mother-of-pearl— are applied to create a painterly
surface. Chae Rimm’s complex forms can be described as 3-dimensional planes or
sculptural painting, and they are a result of perfect technique and should draw
the viewers in. Furthermore, the way in which the sleek and refined, detailed
craftsmanship appears when brought together beyond functional and lyrical
aspects with expanded social and cultural subjects will be a subject of
research study.
Chae Rimm challenged 3-dimensional art with confidence
in painting she acquired based on the functionality she had perfected as a
jewelry designer. Just as she expanded the realm of craftsmanship by lacquer
painting, Chae Rimm recreates lyrical and flexible 3-dimensional sensitivity of
sculpture in relief or panels of the past, while controlling decorative nature
of jewelry design. As she discovers her
own texture and aesthetic motivation on her journey, Chae Rimm’s art becomes of
class of its own, a colorful genre of contemporary art called ‘hybrid
aesthetics.’
The term ‘hybrid’ is frequently mentioned today in
discussion of complex combinations of forms of art because it involves the
intersection of radical and experimental adventures as well as an aesthetic
revolution in the concepts or forms of description. Revolutionary, subversive
spirits of the avant-garde have informed contemporary art since the very
beginning, and applause for such conceptual art and its tyranny fuel so much
discussion today.
Song of the wind in the forest
Ottchil (Korean lacquer), Hemp cloth
Mother-of-pearl, Silver on wood
45x55cm
2016
As in the case of beautiful lacquer painting by
Chae Rimm, the meticulous craftsmanship of a kind that is hardly taught at art colleges
today is barely included in discussions on conceptual contemporary art. In contrast, fields that have attracted wide
interest, such as performance art by Marina Abramović, who uses her body with
remarkable skill, are widely discussed. It is not because the human body is
much more social than traditional media but because it has sensitivity and
expandability of expression. It is conceptual art that started doubting and
inquiring about the tradition of regarding visual art as something composed when
artists express their ideas with certain materials and techniques. In other
words, it involves criticizing the irony of a flat thing, that is, painting,
assuming historical, aesthetic, and economic meaning as soon as it leaves the
hands of the artist. In this regard, Chae Rimm’s art language invites us to see
objects again through the lens of lacquer art, lacquer techniques which have
been used for centuries, and the end result is uncommonly beautiful.
Chae Rimm poses questions about the situation where
materials assume totally different social values as soon as they become
functional, as is true of jewelry or personal ornaments. She focuses on finding
differences between ‘material’ without functions and the ‘non-material’ to
which function is given, and then expresses differences in sensitivities
between the things functional and things painterly in detail. Accordingly,
function is a label, and she puts symbolic poetry that leads us to discard our
prejudices derived from such social label in the container of expanded art
called lacquer painting. In other words, Chae Rimm puts on the clothes of pure
art once again so that the vital phenomenon of beautiful colors and figures of
unique entities can be observed.
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