The Good Earth

CHAE, Rimm's fresh take on the traditional technique of jitae ottchil, which involves layering hanji (Korean mulberry paper), conveys a sense of contemporary aesthetics in the underlying Korean sentiment. 

Jitae ottchil is an ancient technique of using hanji in traditional Korean lacquerware craft that flourished during the Goryeo and Joseon dynasties. The origin of hanji goes as far back as the Three Kingdoms Period in Korean history, and traditional hanji is defined as “hand-scooped paper made mainly with the bark of mulberry trees grown on Korean soil.” There is a saying that while silk only lasts 500 years, hanji survives a millennium, with its 1,000-year durability proved by the oldest existing woodblock print copy of the Great Dharani Sutra. 

<The Good Earth> reveals unique kyeo (layers) and gyeol (grain) on the canvas through repeated hanji folds and the layering of colors. Along with the idea of accumulation, kyeo and gyeol are important elements in understanding this series. Kyeo refers to consistent layering that results from the assemblage of solid and soft elements of nature such as trees and rocks, and the texture or pattern they create is known as gyeol. 

Through the repeated grain of hanji and ottchil, Rimm constructs paintings that convey layers of time. The natural continuations and breaks of thick and thin folds demonstrate kyeo and gyeol on the two-dimensional pictorial plane, and then work to create a three-dimensional space of painting that implies the temporality of nature that witnesses the continuous cycle of life and death. In other words, the repetitive action of creating hanji folds using the contemporary application of traditional jitae ottchil is both a process of reflecting her inner contemplation through the embodiment of ottchil work and a practice of internalizing temporality.

Rimm expresses linear forms from nature such as ridges, trees, roots, and strata through varied forms and thicknesses of hanji folds. In doing so, she encompasses the energy that flows between the dichotomies of two-dimensional and three-dimensional, traditional and contemporary, intended and coincidental, and real and imaginary, which works to visually expand her art. Lines that embody natural forms come to resemble brushstrokes in ink-and-wash paintings through the hanji folds, while their colors gain volume and the beauty of negative space is magnified.

In the end, the artist arrives at contemplation and meditation on nature through her repetitive work of creating each hanji fold and layering ottchil over it. The subtle sense of volume and texture created by the creases and folds on her canvas ultimately takes us to a serene world of Eastern nostalgia.