Painting Exhibition at Korean Culture Centre
Since 2012 Korean Culture Centre has always aimed towards introducing Korea’s culture in India and developing cultural relationships between both the countries.
On a windy and charming evening in Delhi, Korean Culture Centre inaugurated ‘WomenTimes’, a painting exhibition showcasing the works of 45 Korean participants and 10 Indian participants.
The event started with the lighting of the holy lamp and an enthralling Bhangra performance. This is yet another platform where Indian artists and Korean artists had an opportunity to not only present their paintings but also to learn from each other. OWN had an exclusive conversation with KimKum-pyoung, Director of The Korean Culture Centre India, Hye-Yong Jang, President of the Korean Women’s Art associate and Kavita Nayar (Artist).
“It is a pleasure to be here today and I thank Korean Culture Centre for providing me with this opportunity. I really love India and when I read about its History I fell in love with it even more and today I feel proud to be here and to be able to work with Indian artists. Korea has good relations with India. Even if you look around the paintings you would find a lot of similarities in the work done by Indian and Korean artists. Some works would also appear as a blend of both Indian and Korean style of artwork. I saw a lotus painting here and it’s a proud to know that we share a similar cultural base. We always want to promote our culture and we would always like to spread it across the world” saidHye-Yong Jang.
“There area lot of similarities between Korean and Indian culture, one of that being we both follow Buddhism and the other being that we have a history of Indian blood. 23 % of the Koreans are Buddhist and they consider India as a holy land. So there is a physical as well as a spiritual bond between both the countries, however still Korea is known for its products but nothing is known about it apart from that. So, now we are trying to introduce Korea in a different light to what is known to Indians along with making them understand the history and the bonding of both the countries. I think these types of interactions would help us to achieve what we are aiming at,” said the Director of Korean Culture Centre India, Kim Kum-pyoung.
Continuing with the conversation, the director said, “The status of the women in both the countries is growing stronger with each passing day. The cultural artists, especially women, are much more sensitive and they have good ability to provide exposure to human kind so it is time to conduct an interaction/dialogue between both the countries.”
Commenting on what Kavita Nayar finds similar in styles of Korean and Indian paintings, she said, “The sensibility and the handling is the same. The subject can be different but then if a lay man looks at two works together- one of Indian and second of Korean artist, he or she cannot make out the difference. There is nothing very prominent or different about them. However, there is always a possibility to learn from other cultures and countries. Indian artists are always open for experiments and learning and would do the best out of whatever they can get. I was awestruck by how they use just a piece of paper in an amazing and beautiful way and give it its own soul and substance;if given a chance, I would love to learn from them. I think art has become really important to develop the relationship between both the countries because culture is the first medium that you connect with and if you see how the work of people here is connected with each other’s thenmaybeyou would understand that the expression is different but the content is same. We all are human beings and our emotions are similar. We may be living far away from each other yet we are connected and such platforms make the connections even stronger.”
Ending the conversation with us, the director of Korean Culture Centre India spoke about the difference in the number of Indian participants and Korean participants, “We had very little time to explore and invite artists on-board but we would make sure that when we hold such events the next time, we have equal number of Indian and Korean participants. Korea has a women painting association which participated with us. It has 300 people who do oriental painting and around 500 people who are into the western technique of painting. So, they sent 45 works and 18 artists have joined us today in the event. Due to lack of such associations in India, it gets a little difficult for us to contact people individually.”
