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Wonsook Kim Linton January 31 - March 6, 1997
Wonsook Kim Linton is an inspired artist. Her inspiration derives from a unique understanding of the relationship between self and world. The result is work that brilliantly fuses East and West. The richness of her Korean youth is continuously reaffirmed through the language of her adopted West. That Woonsok tends to work in series is indicative not only of her working method, but also of her approach to life. She is the woman wanderer recording her experiences as she travels. These experiences are drawn from various sources. They may stem literature, ancient myths, folklore, or the joys and sorrows of everyday life. But as specific as the sources of Woonsok's renderings may be they are never illustrative. Her series are composed of works that relate to one another, not through narrative but rather as a collection of individual moments of clairvoyance. Similarly, the figures that populate Woonsok's world may represent individual people in her life, and yet they are every woman and every man. Their environment so familiar but never specific, as if in a dream or some experiences of distant memories. It is hard if not impossible to talk about this work without mentioning the concept of beauty, or the qualities of quietude, and the emotions such as longing, tenderness, grief, and joy. Ever since the high minded failure of the nineteenth century Salon painter to recapture the ideals of their classical ancestors, artists have shied away from those qualities associated with our basic human condition. Beauty became associated with sentimentalism; beauty became feminized. It is thus a measure of the extraordinary strength of Woonsok's art that it demands a reexamination of this ancient and often misused concept. The beauty in her work does not derive from assumed ancient experiences or understanding of the world, but rather her own. Her art is informed by her growing up in war torn Korea, and ancient culture ripped apart by modern violence. It is also informed by her absorption of Western culture and her travels between the two, and further by her experiences as a mother, wife, daughter, and a sister to six siblings. She dares render herself vulnerable and thus open to what life rushes forth, and in so doing invites us to do the same. -Sandra Erickson, Director
Till we have faces; Thirst
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