Collection
The Magpie and the Pine Tree
Han Jin-Sub
Work Description
- Media Painting on Iron
- Location THE GRAND LOTTE SEOUL EXECUTIVE TOWER 15F
The mural-style installation by Han Jin-Sub, crafted from gray-painted steel wires, is a work that uses linear elements to create forms. If Renaissance painters succeeded in recreating their desire for three-dimensional space through perspective, this work can be said to release two-dimensional lines to freely navigate three-dimensional space. The work consists of lines, but is a three-dimensional work boasting volume and a rich sense of space. Consisting of four different pine trees depicted in four distinct mural spaces, the work demonstrates a clean and refined Korean sensibility, pared down solely to lines. The traditional Korean motifs of the pine tree, a symbol of longevity from ancient times, and the magpie, a harbinger of good news, evoke the feel of a folk tale rendered in relief sculpture. The artist wields the hard metal as fluidly as if he were drawing with a pen, and the temporality inherent in the three-dimensional calligraphic strokes brings an added dimension to the work.
About the Artist
Han Jin-Sub left Korea to study in Italy in 1981. During his ten years of study abroad, he received numerous awards from international sculpture symposiums in Italy and France. His works are held in the Hakone Museum of Art and the Élysée Palace in France, among other places. The artist devotes himself exclusively to his work, abstaining from other activities, believing that artists should speak only through their work. Han’s work concentrates on combining the modern aspects of Western sculpture with traditional elements of Korean art to create contemporary yet quintessentially Korean sculptural forms. His pieces, which seem at first glance naturalistic and easy to sculpt, are in fact the result of the artist’s struggle to wrest human sentiments from the cold, hard materials of stone and steel. His work is also characterized by the quintessentially Korean sense of ease and wit in its forms and use of materials.
Han Jin-Sub (b. 1956, Republic of Korea)
Graduated from the Department of Sculpture, Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara (Italy)
M.A., Department of Sculpture, Hongik University Graduate School
B.A., Department of Sculpture, Hongik University, College of Fine Arts
M.A., Department of Sculpture, Hongik University Graduate School
B.A., Department of Sculpture, Hongik University, College of Fine Arts
