Q(박정원). 작가가 그동안 다루어 온 '영원성'이란 주제와 연관되는 점은, 

A(백미옥). 능혜는 심상의 꽃이다. 영원성이란 주제로 2000년 이후부터 '염력念力', 'Life Series', 'in 울림'이란 테마로 이어졌고, 이 사이 작품 속 형태는 해체 되었다가 조금씩 형상을 다시 찾게 되었다. 

Q. 현재까지 작가 작품에서 변화를 봤을 때 「에너지」, 「에너지의 근원」, 「생명의 뿌리」 그리고 생명이 있는 구체적 대상이 되는 이번 작품 「능혜」에 대하여... 

A. 능혜는 영원성의 한 단면이자 작가의 내면 속에 내재된 심연의 형태라고 할 수 있다. 그것은 영원의 뿌리에서 이어지는 현재의 생명과도 같은 것이다. 

Q. 작가의 작품을 처음 대할 때 가장먼저 깊이 있는 색채와 무수히 많이 반복된 세필의 드로잉이 눈에 띈다. 

A. 무속신앙과 동양사상에 기초한(절, 신당) 색채의 상징적 의미가 영원성과 관계가 깊다고 생각한다. 색은 자연스럽게 오방五方색(황黃,청靑,백白,적赤,흑黑)으로 이어졌고, 그것은 생명의 끈와 뿌리에서 파생되는 다양한 의미의 존재이며, 반복되는 세필드로잉은 현재에서 과거, 그리고 영원의 시점을 하나하나 되짚어나가는 과정이라고 생각한다. 

Q. 초기작품부터 현재까지 형태와 바탕질, 그리고 색의 변화에서 울트라마린이 주조색으로 자리잡게 된 과정에 대하여

A. 초기 캔버스 작업은 100호 정물,산 자연 그대로의 형태와 색과는 달리, 작가의 정신세계를 거쳐 점점 상징적이고 추상적으로 바뀌었고, 바탕질인 캔버스는 오방색을 표현하기에 적절한 광목으로 바뀌게 되었다. 2002년 뉴욕개인전 『Life Series』에서 광목은 쪽빛으로 염색되어 평면작업과 두루마리 형태의 설치작업으로 나타난다. 현재까지 작업형식은 물감을 나이프로 펴는 작업, 과감한 붓질스케치, 손으로 문지르기, 세필의 반복드로잉으로 구성되는데, 쪽빛과 흡사한 울트라 마린은 이 과정에서 변질될 수도 있는 색채가 그대로 유지되며, 화면을 밑받침뿐만 아니라 그것을 하나로 정돈시켜 주는 역할을 한다. 결과적으로 주조색 울트라마린은 작가 내면의 심상과 사상을 가장 잘 표현하는 영감의 색이라 할 수 있다. 

Q. 제 10회 개인전 능혜에 대한 소회

A. 이번 작품 「능혜」는 생명으로 이어지는 영원의 뿌리를 찾고자 오랜 침묵과 고통의 시간을 색으로 침잠시킨 사이, 어느새 피어난 한 송이 작은 꽃처럼 조용히 현실로 다가온 선물과도 같은 심연의 존재이다. 이 「능혜」는 사람들에게 회로처럼 이어지고 또 이어져 작은 기쁨과 생의 환희로 다가가 또 다른 형태로 피어나는 「능혜」가 되었으면 한다.

A flower of the abyss blooms out of suffering and silence, through the soul of the artist

 A pine tree that is thousands of years old, standing in some town, wild grasses with no name which sprout as seasons change, and the sky and the land that encompass all of nature … all seems quiet and constant. There would be no definite answer if one asks the reason why all beings are covered by the curtain of the present. Everything just lives for the day, and, as time passes by, grows, declines, blossoms in its most beautiful form, and eventually slowly fades away. What is important is that this is not the end. The boundary of formation and extinction cannot be grasped or seen, but the spirit and the soul will last forever.

 

 'NungHae,' the 10th  solo exhibition by Mee-Ok Paik, which comes after a 5-year absence from Korea during which she held exhibitions in Berlin and New York, is the "right trace" of endless questioning and searching for the root of the power to sustain the present and continue forward. That is, it does not center around a life that is lived in the present, but talks about the spirit, whose complex tangling of ties and short and long histories make appearances in the present. It is not an easy task, as what Mee-Ok Paik is trying to say cannot be expressed through direct language or the body. This is clearly revealed by her pre-work processes of design and drawing. The sensitivity acquired by inspiration is largely accepted, but afterwards, the expression of defining ideas and visualizing these as drawing proceeds very slowly and subtly. These works of Mee-Ok Paik, having named the shape of the abyss existing in herself as 'NungHae,' can be said to be the collection of a process that goes back into the distant past, all the way to the very beginning.

 

Calmness and Creation of Color Submerged in the Aesthetic Consciousness of the Artist

 Since the artist developed a fascination with Korean shamanism and Eastern philosophy, her works dealing with the roots of life itself have continued, through the themes of ‘Psychokinesis’, ‘Life Series', and 'in Resonance’. In the process of visualizing the ideas and refining the concepts upon which the works are based, the Oh-Bang colors of Korea (five colors, each representing a cardinal point plus the center) were naturally chosen, and the probing of colors earned at various times were produced in Gan-color, which contains the story of Mee-Ok Paik. As the background that enables the best expression of Oh-Bang Gan-color is cotton cloth, its weak absorption of water presents some difficulties, but the base work of meticulously filling the seams of cotton cloth proceeds. The climax is applying the color and revealing the shape at the same time. The dissolution of the shape and the obscuring of the boundaries, made as the colors meet through repetitive drawing as if drawing the original shape with a fine brush, brings forth a mysterious color. The labor-intensive fine-brush drawing of the artist, together the artist’s own unique character that becomes embodied in the work, builds in intensity and then calms in the hierarchy of time, until manifesting itself in the form of a large-scale work. The result of the colors formed at this point and the labor-intensive drawing is an aspect of the eternity that led her to break out of agony and silence; a self-blooming flower of the abyss, the 'NungHae.'

Form of the Abyss Containing Time and Space and Continuing to Eternity

  The work of Mee-Ok Paik exists on a continuum of change. Unlike many of her past exhibitions, 'NungHae' features works that include clearly-defined natural objects, such as trees, mountains, flowers, and leaves. Appearing for the first time in 10 years since 2000, when she completely dissolved the object in her work, the form of 'NungHae' is actualized in a variety of shapes. A 6-piece tree series, 100 variations of mountains and roses, and flowers interconnected with a single stem in one screen show diverse coloring processes and method according to the composition. The sketch process for the entire face before coloring may seem to be disordered, but by predicting the colors as they appears in aspects, layer by layer, the ratio of chroma and color surface is controlled and boldly composed. In the later process of coloring with a fine brush, depending on the amount of color and the drawing count, the form appears in the change of the sense of volume formed by the high and low matière. For some pieces, colors are applied by hand to express small water drops on the surface. The shape, mysteriously appearing and disappearing according to the light on the boundary that is covered and revealed by color, invokes the idea of an apparition. The visual image of the flat surface may seem simple, but the depth of color and the mystery of the shape, which is beyond the viewer’s grasp, like a mirage, provides an image that suggests an inexpressible calm and sentimental value, after finishing a journey to the distant past.

Drawing, Reality's Expressive Tool to Reflect Eternity, and its Uniqueness

Drawn on cotton canvas with acrylic paint, the works of Mee-Ok Paik could be said to belong to the genre of drawing, but a special method is chosen in the composition process. Just as a stonemason reveals the shape by constantly working the rock with hammer and chisel, the artist manifests the form of the abyss inherent in the word and the image of 'NungHae' with brush and paint. Using herself as a tool, the process of refining all images and thoughts appears as repetitive drawing. And, piling layer by layer, the hierarchy of colors formed within reveals the phantom-like form of ‘NungHae’.

 The end result includes installation and spatial works, in addition to flat surface works. The 10 masks in Oh-Bang Gan-colors, presented for the first time, are produced by directly casting the face of the artist herself. The cotton scroll that it is installed with is attached to the wall, and hangs down to form a harmony with the drawings. Eternity to a person is expressed as an imaginary object, which is definite but non-existent, like 'NungHae', meaning it exists in various forms in the time and space of reality.

 

‘NungHae’ is the image of a flower that supports itself on the mud pile underwater, and after a period of silence, allows its stems to emerge above the surface, eventually blooming with small and white petals. This is similar to the artist’s process of completing the works. The idea she selects is like a process of composition, moving towards a new world that can only be found through refined effort, and a repeated cycle of pain and bliss. The story of ‘NungHae’, which appears in the artistic world of Mee-Ok Paik after a 10-year absence, is expressed in the sensitive language that is the artist’s own. The harmony of colors, innumerably overlapping and crossing on a homogenous surface, traces of solidly piled-up brush strokes like a furious storming wave, and the sense of depth that they invoke, give us a peek at eternity. ‘NungHae’, the flower that has bloomed through endless pain and bliss in order to grasp the strand of eternity, shall keep blooming and fading, and its spirit shall continue to live.