Ha In-doo (1930-1989) graduated from the Department of Painting at Seoul National University in 1954. Ha held a number of solo exhibitions including, “An Aspect of Korean Contemporary Art” at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea, currently MMCA, in 2000 and participated in numerous group exhibitions, and posthumous exhibitions. Ha served on the faculty of the College of Art at Hansung University.
Ha In-doo belongs to a generation that actively embraced Western contemporary art in post-war Korea, playing an active role in the
Contemporary Artists Association which was the then epicenter of Korean abstract art. He sympathized with contemporary trends but also deeply contemplated the topic of abstract art in a Korean art context. He turned his attention to Korean traditional arts and Buddhism-based worldviews such as Obangsaek, five traditional Korean colors, and Dancheong, decorative colorful patterns on Korean wooden buildings, focusing on abstraction inherited from an Asian cultural worldview, and experimented with unique abstract works using related subject matter. In the 1960s, influenced by Opt Art, Ha produced works that created visual effects using bright primary colors and geometric patterns. In the 1970s, he actively endeavored to express a Buddhist worldview, adopting blue as the main color to express an inextricably intertwined abstract structure. These abstract structures may seem to be convoluted but have one pivot, which is the expression of the Buddhist mandala, whereby all things in the world revolve around one center in a universal order. Entering the early 1980s, his paintings changed from being based on blue to including intense diverse colors and varied compositions in which small planes bordered by stripes spread out in a vibrant manner. Through these forms, Ha pursued a more transcendental worldview in paintings such as “Spiritual Fire,” which contrasted his previous Buddhist theme of the mandala. Occasionally, human figures praying are hidden in these abstract scenes, which seem to represent the joy of life and the salvation of man that Ha tried to hold on to during the hard times when he was fighting illness. Ha tried to express a transcendental and religious worldview through abstract forms rather than express visual or formal content.
