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Paintings can bring comfort to human beings. Human life is filled with sorrow. Sorrow is a fundamental part of life, and no one can completely escape from it. Sometimes regret and envy overwhelm life itself. Art, and painting in particular, can offer people comfort and help them endure these deep emotions.
Chang Ucchin (hereafter C) created simple and intriguing paintings that invite viewers into a wonderful world that seems to exist somewhere beyond our own. He depicted children, trees, birds, houses, and families in a highly simplified manner. His paintings may seem almost childlike at first, but they possess an indescribable depth.
C was originally trained as a Western-style painter and had strong conventional painting skills. At the age of 20, he painted Playing Gonggi (Korean Jacks) and submitted it to a national student art exhibition, where it won the top prize. This achievement convinced his family, particularly his mother, to support his ambition to become an artist. The following year, he moved to Japan to study Western-style painting at an art school in Tokyo.
Yet C gradually moved away from conventional Western painting. After leaving his professorship at Seoul National University in 1960, he eventually settled in the countryside outside Seoul and devoted himself to painting. From the 1960s onward, he increasingly concentrated on small, simplified paintings that looked almost as if they had been drawn by a child.
We cannot know exactly what he felt or thought as he created these works. Yet we can sense something of the sorrow and longing that he encountered and expressed throughout his life. Perhaps that is why his paintings give us a peculiar sense of comfort.
Chang Ucchin's paintings remain before us like the drawings of a child, bringing a quiet smile that the hardships and misunderstandings of the world cannot take away.
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