CULTURAL SENSIBILITIES IV. Four Korean women artists along with more than 40 artworks made a trip to Portland to be a part of the "Cultural Sensibilities" show at Portland State University’s Littman Gallery. Together with the Oregon Women’s Caucus for Art, which contributed more than 20 works, the show provides an opportunity for women artists to explore the differences in taste and technique between the two cultures. (Photos courtesy of the Portland State University Littman Gallery)

From The Asian Reporter, V19, #15 (April 14, 2009), page 13.

By Allison Rupp

Women in Korea are cultural consumers, not producers," began Kyungpook National University professor Nam-hee Park at a recent lecture on the state of female Korean artists.

Professor Park travelled to Portland with three other Korean women artists and more than 40 artworks for the fourth "Cultural Sensibilities" show at Portland State University’s (PSU) Littman Gallery. Together with the Oregon Women’s Caucus for Art (OWCA), which contributed more than 20 works, the show provides an opportunity for women artists to explore the differences in taste and technique between the two cultures.

In the pre-show presentation, Park outlined the history of women’s art in Korea, and specifically in Daegu province, the conservative region of central Korea where her university is located.

According to professor Park, the Daegu artists’ conservative taste and admiration of nature stem from strong Confucian values in the region — values that place men over women in the natural order. As a result, Daegu women artists primarily produce floral paintings.

The study and creation of fine art by women did not exist until the 1920s and ’30s, when an ambassador’s wife named Hae-seok Na became Korea’s first female artist, painting bold colors and experimental shapes that rivalled (if not surpassed) the work of her male contemporaries. During this period, Korean women travelled to Japan or France if they desired an art education since a modern education for women did not exist in Korea’s universities.

This changed after World War II, when women began to receive university training and produce many naturalist paintings, conservative in both subject and style. The third generation of female artists explored abstract and surreal images in the 1970s and ’80s, but it wasn’t until the end of the 20th century that women began to address their identity and sexuality in artwork.

While female enrollment in art schools is at its highest in a century (almost 80 percent of art students are women), female educators and curators remain underrepresented. As dean of the art department, professor Park — who paints abstract Korean petroglyphs in fluorescent hues — was the only woman dean at Kyungpook University, a position she held for three years.

Many of the artists accompanying Park for "Cultural Sensibilities" received their art training later in life, from cultural centers rather than formal universities. Nearly all of their work is floral, whether a paper fan decorated with flowers or a painting of a kitten sniffing a blossom. Artist Lee Hye Kyung contributed a series tellingly titled "Painting My Life Through Flowers." Another artist, Seesook Ryu, posed next to a painting of white and lavender blooms in a dress printed with the same motif.

Una Kim, an artist and adjunct professor at PSU who organized "Cultural Sensibilities" on the PSU end, believes that seeing past the flowers is one of the challenges to American audiences at the show.

"In the west, flowers are not taken seriously; they’re seen as a safe subject matter. But we have many other types of abstract painting that reveal nothing about our identities. The way we think about art as western women can be very different from Korean women."

Lee says her series of brilliantly colored wildflowers tells of her identity and life story in its own way. As a mother of six daughters, Lee says her family berated her until she at last gave birth to a son. Walking through a field of wildflowers near her home offered Lee peace and solitude, and those flowers became a symbol in her paintings for resilience.

This is the second time PSU has hosted "Cultural Sensibilities." The show first appeared in Daegu, South Korea in 2001 when OWCA formed a friendship with the Daegu women artists, and it returned to Korea again in 2006. This year’s works from OWCA cover a broad range of subjects and techniques from Asian-inspired rice-paper prints to abstract collage.

Kim says this time is the best yet in terms of quality from the American artists.

"Cultural Sensibilities IV" is on display at PSU’s Littman Gallery, located at 1825 S.W. Broadway in Room 250, through April 29. The gallery is open Monday through Friday from noon to 4:00pm. The exhibit is free and open to the public. To learn more, call (503) 725-5656 or visit the OWCA website at <www.oregonwca.org>.