“The Way to Coal Town” (1983) features a commuter bus heading to a coal mining town along a mountain road early in the morning. The dark coal mine appearing as one more climb along the steep uphill path on a rugged mountain ridge, and the dry, leafless
overgrown branches rising from the trunk suggest that another hard day awaits inside the mine. The deep imprints of the wheels in the wake of the bus struggling to climb the steep mountain road allude to the miners’ harsh reality. Hwang Jai-hyoung reproduces in a placid manner what he had experienced and felt firsthand after entering into the field, instead of viewing the lives of socially marginalized people with compassion.
Hwang Jai-hyoung (b. 1952) graduated from the Painting Department of the College of Art at Chung-Ang University in 1982. He held multiple solo exhibitions including “Dirt to Grasp and Land to Lie on” at The Third Museum and Academy Gallery in 1984, at Baiksong Gallery in 1987, and at Gana Art Center in 1991 and in 2007; “The Wrinkles of Life, The Weight of Sweat” at Gwangju Museum of Art in 2013; and “One Hundred Thousand Hairs” at Gana Art Center in 2017. He participated in various group exhibitions including “The Third World and Japan” at Tokyo Museum of Art, Tokyo in 1986; “New Year’s Mining Culture Festival” at Taebaek Coal Center in 1989; “Young Asia” at Maruki Art Museum, Saitama in 1992; “15 Years of Minjung Art: 1980-1994” at National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea, currently MMCA, in 1994; “The Value of Humanity and Art” at Han River Art Museum in 1996; “The 1980’s Realism and the Age” at Gana Art Center in 2001; “Power and Dreams of the Minjung: Chung Gwanjae’s Minjung Art Collection” at Gana Art Center in 2007; “Memory and Experience: Hwang Jai-Hyoung, Oh Chi-Gyun” at Gana Art Center in 2015; and “Post Modern Real” at Seoul National University Museum of Art in 2017. He is the recipient of the Highly Commended Award
of the Joongang Fine Arts Prize in 1982; the Korean People’s Arts Award in 1993 and 2013; and the 1st Park Soo-Keun Art Award in 2016.
Not long after his debut, Hwang Jai-hyoung founded the artist association Imsulnyeon and participated in the Minjung Art movement. He raised existential questions about modern society, focusing on the shadow of industrialization, marginalized workers and dehumanization under capitalism. In 1983, he traveled to the mining village of Taebaek, Gangwon Province, and lived there as a miner for three years, using his canvas to capture the lives of the villagers and the landscape of the town, a leitmotif that lasted throughout his entire career. Hwang’s works, which depict subjects such as a miner covered in coal dust, the wrinkled face of a miner’s wife, and the roofs and walls tinged with black, alternate between expressionist and hyperrealist styles and candidly represent the reality of a mining village, while excluding the painter’s subjective thoughts and sensibilities. In addition to paints, Hwang has used substances with distinct properties such as coal, ink, plywood, cloth, sponge, paper, and soil, going as far as to distort the frame of the canvas to allow these three-dimensional materials to stand out from the picture plane. Such coarse matiere vividly conveys the physical reality of the mining town, erupting with an intense energy originating from real life experience. It overcomes a pessimistic perception of reality and shows a strong will towards hope and resilient vitality.
