Conjunction 2002-24

Ha Chong-Hyun works with coarse, plain-woven hemp. In order to accentuate its material characteristic, he applies a thick layer of paint on the reverse of a canvas and presses it until it penetrates to the other side and repeats this process. Ha calls his unique pressing technique the 'back-pressure method,' bae-ap-bub in Korean, and his series produced through this pressing method is titled Conjunction. During the early 1970s in the early stages of technical experimentation, Ha preferred leaving the paint on the front side as is when the paint is emerged from the other side. As Ha's experiment with material and technique evolved, he began to mark the front side of the emergent paint with various tools including his hands. Conjunction 2002-24 featured here epitomizes the evolution of his style during the 2000s, clearly manifesting the meaning of painting as a tool for meditation as well as of bodily process. His works are not to be understood solely as a canvas of visual result, a concept which fundamentally differentiates his works from Western abstract paintings. As with the other peer artists of the monochrome movement featured here, Ha Jong-Hyun successfully achieved a harmony between self-awareness and self-negation, the inner and the outer, and contemplates the relationship between the body and the mind through his use of colour simplification and the overall meditative approach to his works.