As part of the series she embarked on after moving to Icheon, a famous region for rice production, “Blooming” (2008) evokes a sprouting plant. In the title, “bloom” holds various meanings: the moment of transformation by breaking the husk and the moment of sprouting from shrunken trees during winter. In this painting, Ham depicts the exact moment when the flowers are blooming. The elements of the production process are directly illustrated―use of light and delicate materials, enormous time and labor, and handicraft practices. Countless layering with colored pencils reveals the traces of time, which can be compared to the act of weaving a strand of hair one by one. The crystal shining on the canvas strengthens the feel of transparency and fragility.
Ham Younjoo (b. 1970) received her bachelor’s degree in sculpture in 1994 and master’s degree in 1996 from Ewha Womans University. In 1999, she received a master’s degree from Pratt Institute in New York. Since returning to Korea, she has held solo exhibitions at Project Space SARUBIA and Alternative Space Pool among others. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions including “Flare: A Brand New Start in Art” at Construction Site of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea, currently MMCA in 2009.
In her work, Ham Younjoo has embodied the intrinsic characteristics of light and flexible materials such as stockings, latex, hair, and feathers. The series of “Ol,” meaning a strand in Korean, is an installation, created by delicately weaving Ham’s own hair like a cobweb over many years, in particular garnered attention from the art circle. Ham’s works, comprising gentle fragile hair fixed by transparent glue and hung on a ceiling or wall, fascinate viewers causing them extreme tension as if the hair would be damaged by the slightest touch, yet at the same time urge people to come closer. Such a phenomenon, which is well represented in the title of her solo exhibition “smooth tension,” provides a major keyword for defining her work. Most of Ham’s works are labor-intensive, conveying the enormous amount of time accumulated in the creation of the works. According to Ham, everything that takes place during the production―her physical energy, reactions among the materials, light, gravity, and the installation space―constitutes the overall work.
