Hyeja Moon, The Pictorial Variation of Music [SEO SEONG ROK ]
*We can not imagine such picture as excludes rhythm and the visual sentiment of it as the rhythm animates and rejuvenates the picture. It is like a pastoral field and a breeze over the grass that generate a poem. The audience remember the performance and feel touched when it has a resonance through rhythm. Sa-Hyeok, in the periods of Six Dynasties in China who came up with the idea of 'animated energy', valued a vivid rhythm above the representation of things before eyes. Also, Kandinsky is well known for his rhythmic abstract art created by his fascination with Wagner <Lohengrin>, and Schonberg's atonal music.
*Abstraction is a mental activity to visualize the internal movement. The internal situation is visualized through the strength of brush strokes or directions, or harmony and contrast of colors. Here the internal movement is considered as a state of mentality or sentiment that is carried by rhythm and colors in the process of visualization. Needless to say, in the case of abstract that excludes a real image, its reliance on colors is great, which is not quite different in the case of plastic art though. Therefore, it is crucial for an abstract artist to deal with rhythm and to handle colors. For Moon, Hyeja rhythm and colors have the same importance in her work of art.
*Even before long, her abstract was like storm and gale. The sentiment rushing down like tough waves and thunder with storm would have wiped away the canvas embraced the screen. Such crush of complementary colors, roaring gestures, fragments of unrest and tension on the canvas etc. as dynamic expressions came from the inspiration through Jazz. The artist herself asserted," the sound tone of Jazz leading my feelings, energy for work, and my spirit to the fantastic world gives strong colors and draw sharp lines on my canvas". Her work of art is closely connected with music. Her paintings are composed of the elements of Jazz like rapidity, improvision, sound effect, various tones, and dynamic. She fills her canvas with musical elements. The colors, the free gestures, the harmonic composing reveal a rhythm flowing on the canvas and this musicality leads Moon's brush. (Paola Trevisan)
*Besides, among her works there are <Ponds>, <Sunset>, <Landscape>, <Sunrise>, <Pink Sky> that she employed landscaping elements. While a real landscape is serene and still, the landscapes in her work are vivid and animated. Is that because they are under the power of earth or the unsettled sentiment? Her canvas is continuously vacillating and waving. She must have thought that there was no need to transfer the nature into the real images because her landscape came into view to optimize the visual rhythm on the canvas. Her brush lines freely dance on the canvas, and then the pure colors rejuvenate the picture. In her works there are full of fresh life and pleasant feelings.
*Her adjustment and linkage of music and painting could be witnessed more clearly in her recent works. We can encounter images of floating musical notes on sound waves, a dotted poinsettia, sound of a bell, bright stars, fluttering birds, impatient hands for help, green grass, dancers commemorating victims, etc.. Besides, there are a furtive die, a wagon, a tree, a telephone, a woman, a flock of sheep, a bunch of flower, and a hazy moon. Her canvas is filled with images that are colorful and decorative. She fills a rectangular canvas with images or decorative patterns after dividing it into a square and smaller ones in the square again.
*As she loves music, she still deals with musical theme, and newly employs concrete images leaving her usual rhythm of music. A fantastic spectacle is displayed by colors according and colliding like sounds entangling and harmonizing. According to her colors are the medium for delivering emotions and the full canvas is a concert stage.
*Especially in this exhibition, there includes a commemorative work for the memory of the deceased sailors of the warship Cheonan incident: <Music for Mass Murder Refrain>(1007). The work is originally intended to commemorate Jews brutally killed in the world war II. However, in the mean time ironically the warship Cheonan incident took flowery sailors' lives, so she changed her plan into a commemorative work for the victims. The provocation of North Korea took dozens of young souls and also their dreams into the abyss. It can be compared with a Requiem, but this painting is far from a smell of death. That is because she considered their sacrifice as noble and beautiful. In the work, the deceased dance in group around the stars and the highly decorative patterns of pink, blue, and yellow colors assist them. Where on earth is a noble life as a sacrifice for the country? In the painting, they are portrayed as bright as stars, free as birds, and beautiful as rainbow. She mourns their death and does not forget to scatter flowers onto the canvas. It is a historical work which commemorated the death of the youths and sublimated its meaning in art.
*As I have mentioned above, she deals with 'pictorial variations of music' in her works. It is inevitable to depend on a visual language to re-write the rhythm and musical notes that are to be appreciated through ears on the canvas. In order to deliver the music effectively the artist uses rhythmical drawing and colors with high purity and also her improvising drawing and high purity of colors are main keys to deliver music from ears to eyes. The inspiration from music is metamorphosed into a concrete image such as the commemorative work of victims of the incident of the warship Cheonan.
*The artist weaves her work from instant inspirations with colors and brush lines, widens her expression and deepens her meditations. That she amplifies the purity of life through her plastic language with fresh spirits is a by-product of her labor. We are thrilled by the joy and pleasure of life in the middle of burning flame of life, and sometimes hurt in the beautiful romance. Like this, she delivers images of a group of people with all kinds of sentiment onto her canvas like musical notes which scatter about manuscript paper. In every Spring we are fascinated by floral scent perceived through the nose. Likewise, we would be delighted when we feel the fragrance of a pure spirit through her work of art.
*SEO SEONG ROK (the President of Korea Art Critic Association)