Cha Ou Hi (b. 1945), who made her debut in the Korean art scene with her first solo exhibition at Gallery Hyundai in 1977, has pursued an artistic career based in Berlin since 1981. She received the academic exchange scholarship from the German Federal Government in 1985. Cha held several solo exhibitions at various institutes including The Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Galerie Pfeiffenberger, and Berlin State Museum of Art, and participated in various group exhibitions including “Touring Exhibition―German-based Artists” at Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art in 1986 and 1987; “Monochrome in Korean Contemporary Art” at National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea, currently MMCA, in 1987; and “Artists of the Times” at Stuttgart International Cultural Exchange Fair, Germany in 1987.
Cha Ou Hi has long taken inspiration from the theme of journey for her art, as seen in her paintings like “Ship of Odyssey,” “Stray Thoughts on Sails,” and “Sail as Wing.” The painter has pursued to reach out to the fundamental forms or the realm of mind through her simple and understated works in which material elements are emptied out like a vessel erasing her own wake. Cha’s creations that blur the boundary between painting and object are comprised of two main elements: the fragments of objects found in her studio that contain the painter’s personal memories, such as wooden pieces, postage stamps, coins and souvenirs; and universally used symbols including several kinds of characters, dots, lines, and Arabic numerals. As a stimulus for diverse association, these floating symbols on the canvas usher viewers into an unknown world, inviting them to see the painter’s autobiographical memories from an objective perspective.
