Eight Korean-French artists present "Hwaeom of the Boundary — From Paris to Gurye" at Hwaeomsa temple
The nomadic journeys of eight Korean-French artists who have spent more than 30 years building their artistic worlds in Paris are converging with the thousand-year-old temple of Hwaeomsa through art.
Hwaeomsa, the head temple of the 19th district of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, is hosting a special exhibition titled "Hwaeom of the Boundary — From Paris to Gurye," featuring eight Korean-French artists, at its Seongbo Museum and Bojeru pavilion through Sept. 30.
The exhibition brings together Korean painters who have long worked in Paris for an encounter in Gurye, using art to show how seemingly opposing worlds — East and West, modern and traditional, movement and stillness, creation and spiritual practice — find connection within the philosophy of Hwaeom Buddhism and form a single unified world.
All participating artists are members of the Sonamu Artists Association, a group that has centered its work in Paris. The eight participants are Hong Hyun-ju, Moon Chang-don, Choi Hyun-ju, Hunmoro, Oh Se-gyeon, Park Woo-jung, Hong Il-hwa and Park In-hyeok.
The Sonamu Artists Association was founded in Paris in 1991 and is one of the most prominent Korean artist organizations abroad, having consistently maintained its creative activities in France, across Europe and in Korea over the past three decades.
Working across painting, sculpture, installation, video and photography, the artists have each developed a distinct artistic vision while living for years away from home, navigating unfamiliar languages and cultures. After that long nomadic passage, they now encounter the majestic and serene space of Hwaeomsa on Jirisan.
Shin Eun-ju, an avant-garde dancer and exhibition curator who organized the show, said that "in the traditional space of the thousand-year-old Hwaeomsa on Jirisan, each artist's different questions and expressions illuminate one another like the radiance of difference within Hwaeom's Indra's net, forming a single world and offering visitors an experience of tradition and modernity fusing anew."
A Hwaeomsa official said the temple hopes the exhibition will help transform it "from a space simply for viewing cultural heritage into an open cultural and artistic space where traditional and contemporary art meet and Eastern and Western thought intersect."
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