Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Lee Hwira's 'My Mother'--photographs printed on translucent material, is part of the current exhibit at the Gallery at Montalvo.
A woman's place in Korean culture explored at Montalvo
By Shari Kaplan
Is there a way for contemporary female Korean artists to reconcile their ideas of femininity with the traditional cultural folkways and religious morés they were raised to accept in their homeland?
Six women are currently expressing this quandary through a variety of mediums--art, photography and video--at the Gallery at Montalvo, located at 15400 Montalvo Road in Saratoga. The group installation by Im Boklae, Lee Hwira, Oh Jinyoung, Kim Jungsun, Lee Myungjin and Chang Sungah runs through May 13, and offers a provocative look at the concept of yeosong--the Korean word for femininity.
The exhibit is guest-curated by Linda Inson Choy, who was born in Gongju, South Korea, and immigrated to the United States in 1974. She is currently completing her master's degree in art history at San Jose State University and has curated many Asian art exhibits in the Bay Area.
Although their mediums and methodologies differ, the six artists' collective voice remains constant in its desire for expression and autonomy in a Confucian society. According to Laura Collins Phillips, Montalvo's marketing director who also prepared background information for the installation, many scholars now suggest Korea may be the Asian nation that is the most steeped in Confucian ideology, surpassing even China, which was the religion's birthplace.
To understand the traditional role of women in such a society is a complex endeavor, but Jungsun offers a nutshell definition in the explanatory note accompanying her large oil-on-paper and graphite-on-paper portrait collection titled simply "She."
"Confucianism is the moral authority that insists on every woman to aspire to embody the ideal Confucian aesthetics of beauty and who is patient, obedient, self-sacrificing and silent," she explains.
Sungah--whose contribution to the exhibit are five larger-than-life figures of Korean women, drawn in pencil and pen, and attached to the wall--reveals that for her, coming to terms with these aesthetics and expectations is a continuing challenge: "Whether I like it or not, dealing with Korean traditional values based on Confucianism is my life homework."
Bringing a very tangible quality to this quest are Boklae's two pieces of art, both of which she calls Puzzle. One of them sits on the gallery floor, a three-dimensional cube of painted styrofoam that resembles the type of children's toy that is easy to take apart, but hard to put together again. Two pieces have already slipped out.
Her other piece consists of nine panels of wood in the shape of a puzzle in which the panels must be slid around into the proper arrangement, in order to produce a picture. These panels, however, are plain white, which, according to Boklae, represents the "sense of absence" she feels after struggling for a solution that never appears--a solution to the conflicts of identity.
Myungjin offers her spin on the topic with her documentary video, Jongmyo Project, while Oh Jinyoung has prepared a video titled Love, Defect(ed). Both play from videotapes on opposite sides of the gallery. Hwira uses enlarged inkjet prints of photographs showing her relationship with her mother. Each of these women have also prepared explanatory texts to accompany their works.
Gallery hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, call 408.961.5813 or visit www.villamontalvo.org on the Internet.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
