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○ Exhibition Information
Artist : Jeong Haejin
Title | Tiger Skin Pattern holding Grand Events 虎皮好事
Period| February 10 ~ February 28, 2012
Place : Gallery Gahoedong60 - 60 Gahoe-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Korea
Hours | 12:00pm - 7:00pm Monday - Saturday
Opening reception | 6:00pm Friday February 10
Tel | 02-3673-0585
Website | www.gahoedong60.com

○ Exhibition Introduction


Tigers that want transformation and humans.

The first story on human and tiger is found in the Dangun legend. A tiger prayed to beome human. It was asked to endure eating only garlic and staying out of the sunlight for 100 days, but it gave up and could not become a human. Why couldn't the tiger take off its skin? In a traditional fairytale, I won't eat you if you give me a piece of cake, a tiger disguised as a man appears. Children make sure their mother is not a tiger by checking the skin on the back of the hand. The tiger that could not become a human and the tiger that could not deceive humans. They wore their tiger skins.

Humans embracing with tigers appearing as others.

Appearing in the Hanging Painting of Spirit (Songgwangsa, 1858) is a mountain spirit with a gentle smile sitting on a tiger. The tiger looks stately with glaring blue eyes and a coiled-up tale in diagonal symmetry. A mountain spirit often emerges with a tiger probably because it's a metaphor for dominating power. The tiger refers to threat, protection and fortune. It is not enough to depict the tiger as threatening, and thus it is revived as a positive charm. In Portrait of Jo Yeong-bok (ca. 1725), Jin Jae-hae - a top portrait painter during the reign of King Sukjong in the Joseon Dynasty - paints a tiger skin instead of a tiger. A tiger skin is draped on the the chair Jo Yeong-bok sits in. The tiger skin's ornamental quality signifies its duplicity, authority and protection. Chairs draped with a tiger skin were widely applied to Joseon's full-length portraits. Joseon painter favored the tiger skin.

Sumptuous tiger skins appropriated.

A Furious Tiger under a Pine Tree (19c, coloring on silk) is a joint work in which Kim Hong-do depicted a tiger and Gang Se-hwang portrayed a pine tree. Influenced by the Western painting technique imported during his time, Kim Hong-do produced tiger paintings with a cubic shading technique. His delicate depictions of tiger skins were remarkable. A tiger appears in the same format in folk paintings like Magpie and Tiger from the late Joseon period. Delicate renditions found in Kim Hong-do's tiger painting disappeared but tigers in folk paintings done by anonymous painters maintained the meaning of the tiger as symbol of good fortune. Why does such a tiger reemerge in modern times? That is the return of a tiger skin. Mainstream design today employs the motifs of animal skins such as zebra, leopard, giraffe, and tiger. Tiger skin patterns are used widely nowadays. It is pervasive in costume, bedclothes, and accessories with luxuries. The tiger skin of a tiger is broken down into parts and the creative image of the tiger skin pattern is decorated with splendid attraction.

Hybridity in artist Jeong Hae-jin's tiger skin patterns.

Why does artist Jeong Hae-jin depict tiger skin patterns? Her work is meticulous as well as cheerful. It demands an intricate explanation. Jeong's work is characterized by a strong magnetism capturing the eye, a representaion of power with dual meaning (threat and protection), design-like reproductivity through modern appropriation, the time of applying jinchae (real pigment, thick and opaque coloring), and minuteness. Her tiger skins conveying different meanings long for their continuity through crossbreeding. Her patterns are not completely breakdown, but yesterday's continuousness. This makes the originality of tiger skin recognize and is able to transform oneself into new art world. The tiger skin may be the subject matter that becomes one in body and soul for the artist who dreams of fusing work with the flavor of silk and jinchae and work with modern refinement. The tiger skin patterns expand to not only tiger's segments, but flowers, bodies, apples, and trees, transcending species. This is Jeong's original system of art work. Where will she go to dream with her tiger skin patterns holding grand events.

By Kim Jung-hyun, Art Critic


○ Jeong Hae-jin

2009 Completed a Ph.D. course in Fine Arts at Dongguk University, Korea
2005 MFA in the Dept. of Traditional True Colored Painting, Hansung University, Korea
2001 BFA in the Dept. of Fine Arts(Oriental Painting), Hansung University, Korea

Solo Exhibition
2012 Tiger Skin Pattern Holding Grand Events, Gallery Gahoedong60 Invitation Exhibit
2010 Welcome. Illusion, AKA Gallery Invitation Exhibit
2010 'In the Public Eye' Exhibit, The K Gallery Invitation Exhibit
2009 Daily Traces_Memories of the Brush, Gallery Godo

Group Exhibitions
2011 Delicious Art, Art & Cook, Sejong Center Art Museums, Seoul
2011 The 2nd Contemporary Korean Painting Festival, Daegu Culture and Arts Center, Daegu
2011 The 14th Jung-gu Artists Association Exhibition, Chungmu Art Hall Gallery, Seoul
2011 Landscape, Seoul Museum of Art Gyeongghuigung, Seoul
2011 Mukseonjeon, Seonggyungwan Gallery
2011 Contemporary Korean Art Exhibition celebrating the Korean Culture Week in Dubai, Dubai National Museum of Art, Dubai, UAE
2011 The 38th Chunchoohoe, GongArt Space, Seoul
2011 The 6th Seoul Open Art Fair (SOAF), COEX, Seoul
2011 Sympathy among Generations, Ulsan Museum of Contemporary Art, Ulsan
2011 Exhibition celeberating the launching of suppoment.com, Doosan Art Square, Seoul
2011 Clio Box, Insa Art Center, Seoul
2011 Monster-Becoming, GanaArt Space, Seoul
2011 SC Shinhan Bank Small Painting Exhibition, Shinhan Bank Jongno, Seoul
2011 The 11th Korean Contemporary Art Fair, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul

2010 ‘The S’, The K Gallery
2010 'Paul Smith & Multicolored Stripes', GongArt Space, Seoul
2010 Commemorate the opening of GongArt Space- happiness bowl, GongArt Space, Seoul
2010 'present', Aquia Gallery
2010 Coffee Story Exhibit, Gallery Search
2010 Circulation Art Projec, Shunart Gallery Shanghai
2010 Korea Modern Korean Painting Festival, Daegu-Ulsan Culture & Arts Center
2010 'Good choice', Exhibition Gallery, Lakeside C. C_Ninteenhole
2010 United Arab Emirates, South Korea Contemporary Art Exhibition, Abudhabi National Gallery of Art
2010 Chunchuhoe Art Festia, Seoul Art Center
2010 NON PLUS ULTRA-PhD Candidates' Alliance Exhibit, Dongduk Art Gallery
2010 Gangneung mihyeop Young Artists Exhibition, Gangneung Municipal Museum
2010 'Sin-maek MOTIVE Exhibition’, Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum
2010 Confirmed in my heart, Insa Art Plaza
2010 Yeo-u-su-jak-Beauty, Gallery GALA

2009 Hanwon Exhibition, A&D Gallery
2009 Participation in compy from the Lee Seong-Yoon Portrait(National Treasure No. 1490), Gochang Institute

2008 Participation in conpy from the HAnging Buddhist Painting(in 1705) of Yongmunsa Temple in Yechoen, Cultural Properties Administration of Korea
2008 Traditional True-Colored Painting Exhibition, Mokin Gallery
2008 From Naksan to Insa-dong, Johyung Gallery
2008 Participation in painting of Buddha disciples from Seonwoonsa Temple in Gochang, Geumryun Institue
2008 Participation in painting of Inrowang and Sinjung from Jukjeon Pogyodang of Songkwangsa Temple, Geumryun Institute

2007 New Millenium of Oreintal Painting - Expansion of the Horizon, Seoul Art Center
2007 Participation in copy from Taepyeonghoemaengdo (Treasure No.663), Jinju National Museum
2007 Tokyo Art Festival, Exhibition Hall of Tokyo Korea Cultural Center
2007 Exhibition of Gallery Gaia Young Artist in Paris
2007 Temporary Exhibition of Designer Zoo - TWO GAZES, Gallery ZOO
2007 9th Preview of Korean Leading Artist, Danwon of Ansan Gallery

2006 STORY Exhibition, Gana Art Space
2006 Traditional True-Colored Painting Exhibition, Kwanhoon Gallery
2006 The Beauty of Our Paintings, Lotte Galley in Anyang
2006 Temporary Exhibition of Kwanhoon Galley- Eternal Fragerance, Kwanhoon Gallery

2005 Production of Cheong Yeon, Daedong Wallpaper
2005 Participation in production of the Hanging Buddhist Picture from main temple of Jinjeonsain Yangyang, Gwangwon-Do, Geumryun Institute

2004 Climb the Naksan, Johyung Galley
2004 Traditional True-Colored Painting Exhibition, Kwanhoon Gallery

Prizes & Awards

2007 Special Prize, 2nd Korea Gangneung Dano Exibition, Gangneung Culture and Arts Center
2007 Special Prize, 1stHerald Traditional Culture and Arts Exhibition, Ansan Culture and Arts Center

2006 Encouragement Award, 31st Korea Traditional Handicraft Exhibition, Seoul Traditional Handicraft Center
2006 Winner, 21st Korea Buddhist Art Exhibition, Insa Art Center

2004 Special Prize, 20th Korea Buddhist Art Exhibition, Insa Art Center

2003 Special Prize in Oriental Painting Section, 6th An Gyeon Art Exhibition, Seosan Culture Center

2001 Winner, 11th Korean Painting Exhibition, Gwangju Biennale

Professional Activities:
Painting Instructor, Hansung University, Seoul
Instructor, Dongguk University / Seoul ESMOD

email: 7998hj@naver.com