No matter how shocking, our distance to global news can seem insurmountable. Yang-ha (1994) has friends and acquaintances all around the world, some of whom unfortunately find themselves in the vicinity of war or other tragedies. Yang-ha turns the conflicts and violence she hears about from her friends into the subjects of her paintings.
The title of her painting, Well, It’s a Scene Made to Cry, So I Will (2023), conveys her personal involvement. Yang-ha: “Whenever my friends share sad news, I have no choice but to cry.”The paintings from this series show explosions that look nothing like the news photographs we are familiar with. With their soft colours and rounded contours, these explosions appear pleasant, or even cute. “As a woman artist, I am using a visual language that is usually experienced as soft and feminine, while the actual explosions are destructive.”
Yang-ha never loses sight of reality. She explains how, a decade ago, she regularly participated in protests. However, no matter how important the cause, in the end it simply took her too much energy to continue to take to the streets. She decided to pick up the paintbrush and soon found out that this also allowed her to communicate about the conflicts in Korea, where she grew up. “Although the paintings from this series are about dramatic events my friends told me about, the spectators will probably also recognize conflicts that they have a personal involvement with themselves.”
Text: Jorne Vriens
Translation from Dutch to English: Marie Louise Schoondergang