Myonghi 明 姬 b. 1947

Myonghi selects painting objects from nature and presents a world that is captured by her unique sensibility, in abstract strokes of strong personal character.

Myonghi paints in a way similar to poetry writing. Whether by way of a big size oil painting or a simple drawing on paper, her works are serious and solid in structure, with all excess details trimmed off. None of her strokes are unnecessary.

The work Village depicts a vista view from Andeok Valley to Daepyeong in Jeju. On the painting are just layers of small irregular patches and outlines of different colors, which are crossing and interlacing with each other, but do not create any recognizable objects. The margins at the bottom and on both sides of this two-meter work are left blank, so that the semi-oval main body looks like it is hanging upside down in the air. At its lower part, a thick pile of golden fragments are trembling, which must be the reflection of sunshine splashing on a close bush. In the middle, there are thick and thin, large and small, curvy and convoluted patches of light yellow, light beige, light green and light blue. Is it not a faraway forest resting in the breeze, with footprints and stories hidden in it? On the top, the boundless sky emerges in the form of rolling light blue and white beads. This is a landscape stretching from close to far, in a delicately knit structure. Both impressionist and abstract styles are applied, in accordance with the natural flow of the pictorial composition, and they are integrated with each other seamlessly.

According to Mr. Dominique de Villepin, 

 "Her art becomes a link between the East and the West. But it is not a one way link, on the contrary it is a path one can take in every direction and a place where the aspirations of the East and of the West can meet, but where can also interlink other meetings, other inspirations, other civilizations. Myonghi opens doors that nobody had guessed were there…

She started with Western art, as the witness of a generation with worldwide horizons. She came back later on but without any disowning and without any conversion to any teachings, both philosophical and technical of Eastern painting. This path towards the past can be seen in the modifications of the paintings, in a new dialectic of the sign and of the color. Some similarities can be found, with the difference of one generation, between the path of a Zao Wou-ki trained to European modern art during his youth before discovering his own artistic identity and Myonghi's progression, between the poles of Korea and Touraine…

Myonghi's paintings…are alive. They are out of time. They are absolutely present. They are efficient, which means that they influence those who look at them…They radiate the power of joy that made them arise, this bliss of the painting that so few artists are able to capture, live and return and that Myonghi has been endowed with, as it has for example been the case for Zao Wou-ki…

She is one of the greatest artists overlapping two centuries and rooted into the worlds. She is one of the voices that count and that will count to bear witness of the modifications of the world and of the new aspirations."