"Coal Town” (1989) depicts miners returning home after finishing work at the blind end of a massive mine, with the town and rugged mountain ridges occupying most of the picture. The huge, massive mountain implies the intensity of labor that the mine workers must
endure. While these figures who are captured mid-stride as they head home covered in sweat and coal dust, might be exhausted from their heavy labor, their faces look relaxed and easy. As if to visualize the sense of relief that mine workers might have felt when emerging from the deep, dark mine and meeting the blinding sunlight of Mother Nature, the glow of the setting sun sparkles above the workers. Their simple, natural appearance bursts with energy drawn from real life experience, thereby demonstrating the strong will of ordinary people to live.
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.
