By Diplomacy Journal Kayla Lee
Pinocchio sits on a green couch deep in the forest. He is gazing at the distant sky with a slight smile on his face. Perhaps he's remembering a pleasant memory. A soft melody seems to be coming from the speaker of a phonometer poking its head into the forest across the street. The whole forest is filled with a clean energy.
Pinocchio looks like an adult. He looks childlike and wary. He enjoys the infinite delusions of his imagination with his delicate wings, which are not yet strong enough to fly. The messengers of his excitement are a couple of lovebirds.
Healthy parakeet is playful and sociable, and their conversation on the couch and in the bushes across from it suggests this. It seems to convey the lingering emotion and excitement in Pinocchio's heart. Not only does he not touch the delicious fruit, but the cushioned carriage next to him shows that he wants to go somewhere.
In the center of the sky, Pinocchio's dream is unfolding. A healthy white horse with large wings spread wide, ready to reach the sun on Pinocchio's behalf. In his imagination, no one can stop him from doing anything. He can live to his heart's content.
Like Pinocchio now, he meets his Idea. Pinocchio or the Little Prince in a natural forest setting, a winged white horse or zebra, a mountain or castle in the distance, a suitcase, an airplane, etc. are the signature motifs of Hwang Je-seong’s paintings.
What they all have in common in the paintings of Artist Hwang Je-seong is that they “evoke memories of innocent childhood. He believes that as we grow older, we lose our childlike spirit. At the very least, we are taught to shed our skin and transform into a different person. But that childlike heart is only asleep. Hwang awakens it by transferring the dreams and ideas of the 'adult' who wants to go there again onto a canvas. Like a scene cut from a movie, it is so realistic and surreal that it draws you in deeply.
“The cycle of life has been the theme of my work for some time. On the one hand, it also corresponds to the philosophical aspect of 'reincarnation,' but it doesn't mean that I long for the afterlife. Rather, I was interested in the present world in which we live. Gradually, I wanted to depict another “multidimensional world” that touches the present world. That is the beginning of the current “Adult Fairy Tales” series. I try to show a perspective that combines childhood and adulthood in a 'Pinocchio-like' way, so I often introduce materials that remind me of the precious memories of my childhood that I have stored in my heart. In the end, it's a representation of a nomad who sets out in search of a dream idea of the future that I have kept in my heart,” said Artist Hwang.
Hwang is a “dream artist. Like Pinocchio's hope to become a human, the wooden puppet, he reflects our hidden self-portrait, wanting to escape reality and regain our innocence. The artist's imagination knows no bounds. Pinocchio must have been thrilled to face a pegasus many times larger than himself, and he must have believed that the countless stories the pegasust told him of his past experiences would become his future. The red light airplane next to Pinocchio catches our eye. It's the Little Prince's favorite airplane. Pinocchio on that red airplane is so exciting and interesting to imagine.
Through Hwang's work, we are invited to imagine a fairy tale, not reality. There are also some dramatic effects. The scene changes suddenly, and you feel like you're in the middle of a movie or drama set. The sense of reality is amazing, as if everything could come to life at any moment. Of course, these scenes were born from the tip of Hwang's brush. You'll be amazed at the exquisite compositions and the perfection of the semi-large scale, as if they were delicately printed.
The paintings of surrealistic scenes that result from this realistic method of composition are often referred to as dépaysement. The term is originally French for “leaving the country or home. It is a form of composition that utilizes the unfamiliarity of encountering a place that is completely unrelated to the nature of the object by removing it from the familiar order or background (atmosphere) of everyday life. The psychological shock of such an alien situation creates a strange feeling and lingering imagery. It is also a driving force for imagination.
Rene Magritte is an example of an artist who has mastered the dépaysement technique. In his paintings, you can see landscapes that are both day and night, clouds in the sky in a cup, or two or three illusions blended into one. It's Magritte's mysterious way of formulating words. Artist Hwang also perfects his surrealistic imagination with his own narrative structure. At times, he invokes Magritte's language. For example, the painting of the little prince and the fox in the red airplane shows how much he admires Magritte.
First of all, the little prince on the airplane is looking at the sky with an unreadable expression. The red rose that he loved so much is leaving him. Or maybe the rose he loved so much is coming to visit him. It is Magritte's bowler hat that brings the rose back. In the distance, a gate to heaven opens. Beyond was the night sky. In contrast to the flowery foreground, the landscape in the distance is an endless desert without a single blade of grass. Telling a story from two or three different points of view is a typical dépaysement technique.
Dreamlike landscapes and colors. The harmony of materials across time and space, the freshness of life like a spring that never dries up.... There are many aspects that characterize Hwang's paintings, but one of the most notable is his use of space.
At first glance, you might feel overwhelmed by the intricate brushstrokes that fill the screen. However, the first thing that comes to mind is a sense of coolness that makes you feel inside. This is because the artist boldly uses empathetic emptiness like the margins of a literary painting.
While the near view is usually painted with ultra-precise fine brushstrokes, the far view is painted with soft flat brushstrokes. The left and right sides are filled to the brim, but the front and back are left with as much space and depth as possible. It's a very wise way of composing a picture.
The common divisor that runs through the 'Circle of Life' series from the early days and the recent 'Another World in the World We Live in' is the realization of the 'nomad idea'. It is an ideal that can only be pursued in the imagination, but it shows that the exhausting daily life can be healed a little by imagining it. A smile that brings back the innocence that was lost for a moment is priceless. His ideology is one of the things that makes our lives exist.
