In this era where culture has become competitive,we, with 5,000 years of history, need deep research and interest in tradition. The traditional work of this era presents a small beginning by breaking away from what has become common in certain genres and moving into a new chapter. Compared to other works, the entire process of lacquering relies almost entirely on the artist’s hand work. From the beginning, you have to carry out the entire process alone and interpret the material called ‘lacquer’ in a very detailed way. The amount of simple labor is high, and you must have technical skills to handle materials and techniques.
In the ‘Bukchon Peony Flower’ series, I projected the image of Bukchon into a simple block of noodles and reconstructed the emerging colors to infuse a sense of modern rhythm. In the contrast between expressing the peony flower in red and applying the blue lacquer color and mother-of-pearl, you can obtain the beauty of blank spaces in oriental paintings, patterns in graphics, and the beauty of color. The work process involved lacquering wooden plywood with raw lacquer, making a thick coat of glutinous rice paste and lacquer, applying it, sanding,lacquering, and sanding again.
Themother-of-pearl was attached with glue, covered with parchment paper, heat treated, and then the glue was removed. After color lacquering and polishing, gold was used to enhance the quality, and it was completed in about 10 steps.
