Fish and Aquarium

Fish and Aquarium

  Today, I received an email from the Rockland Arts Festival that I recently applied for, saying that one of my works has been accepted.

  

  ​The above e-mail is usually received when the work is not selected. It is an general e-mail that is polite and considers the painter's position. Sometimes I get an unpleasant reply saying no show.  "No show" is the dry word that  does not consider the others.

By the way, I get used to experience about the cycles of congratulations and rejections. If I go through these things often, there comes a moment when I don't cling to  words itself and always feel at ease. Because I know that I will go down this path whether I succeed or fail.

 The artwork I submitted this time at the Rockland Arts Festival is titled " Fish and Aquarium"

Fish and Aquarium, 2021, Myungja Anna Koh

​The fish in the aquarium constantly bump into each other in a square space. As time goes by in the constant pain, it will naturally hover around the square without hitting the fishbowl. And later, it becomes its own world. So are those who have been tamed with gaslighting.

   Life is completely yours. So we have to discover and decide how to live on our own in  place. You don't have to go down a path you don't want or have no interest in in order to meet the expectations of others. However, many people live consciously of the gaze of others, and eventually lose what they want and wander with wasting a short life. There is not much to gain from this life. If you want to experience with abundant satisfaction, you must listen to your inner voice, not the voice of others.

​The process of breaking one's own frame is that it seems like the fish in the above picture constantly bump into each other, hurt. Therefore, if possible, we think that it would be better to endure and make a decision for swimming with satisfaction within that frame. But then it's not just a fish. It's another massive aquarium in the shape of a fish.   

The digital art above is made with the motif of seven fish  drawn in 2015 below.  

7 Fish, 2015, Myunjgja Anna Koh

  The seven fish, I drew with ease were sold out in the first exhibition. At that time, the gallery owner asked me to draw much fish. But I wanted to experiment with a shimmering curiosity before finalizing my own style. It is still the same mind.

 If I had to paint in one style for the rest of my life, I don't think there's anything more unfortunate than that. Personally, I have mentors such as Czech painter Alphonse Mucha, German painter, environmental activist, architect Hundertwasser, and installation and performance artist Joseph Beuys, who broke the common-sense framework and made various attempts.

 I saw beauty through nature, and I think that art, like nature shown in our daily lives without any reward, should protrude from the limited space of the gallery and communicate more closely with people. To do this, I have to break some molds. There are a lot of frameworks out there. And my painting is probably in the process of breaking out of this frame.

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 And as a work to break another frame this year, I aimed to write and draw every day. In short, one picture, one post per day. To be honest, I admit that it is more harder than breaking many of the prejudices and molds about my painting.

​ It's been almost half a year and I'm still posting consistently. After a year, I hope to be able to talk about how it broke the mold and what the result was.