“Untitled” (1977) was created during the time when Bang was analyzing and exploring the profound world of the universe. A fitting description of the piece was made by French art critic Pierre Courthion, a long-time patron, “[Her work] has its roots in nature and after observing all of the elements, she then creates a comprehensive form. There is no realistic expression of the details, but she uses the sublimation of the essential elements of nature instead for expression.” There is no detailed form or figurative expression in Bang’s works. But at the same time the works cannot be described as abstract either. Each piece has embedded in it the living breath of the earth, the feeling of the mountains, and the trees and the wind. Not bound to any rigid rule, each element achieves unity with nature by effortlessly merging into the artwork.
Bang Hai Ja (1937-2022) graduated from the Department of Painting at Seoul National University in 1961 and studied mural paintings and colored glass at Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris. Later in 1987, Bang studied printmaking at Atelier 17, S.W. Hayter, Paris. She was the recipient of the Special Selection Award at the 2008 Korean Artist Prize, the Korean Order of Cultural Merit in 2010, and the 11th France-Korea Culture Award in 2012. Bang held and participated in over 100 solo and group exhibitions throughout the world including France and Korea, where she currently divided her time.
Known as the “Painter of Light,” Bang Hai Ja is one of the veteran painters of Korean abstract art, and for over 50 years has explored fundamental themes such as light, life, and the universe. Having mastered various visual vocabularies of Western painting while studying abroad in France in her youth, she developed her own unique oeuvre by harmonizing Korean traditional techniques with Western ones. In the 1960s, she began exploring themes of light and life, and further developed these concepts and worked on visualizing the infinite and abstract notions of the universe in the 1980s and 1990s. To express these complex themes, Bang not only used materials such as Korean traditional paper, Hanji, or non-woven fabric, instead of a canvas, but also employed various mixed-media including plant pigment, stained glass, and relief work with Hanji.
