Ha Haeung Eun: Border Riders: Dreaming of Love, Hope, and Freedom

The complex stories of ‘nature’, ‘human’, ‘art’, and ‘everyday life’, derived from her curiosity and thoughts about the question ‘Who am I?’, appeared on the canvas. The figure in her work reveal features of a baby, a girl, and an elderly woman at the same time, and therefore, the circle of life within one figure. The figure is far from the standard of beauty and is a free being. And in one figure, the old generation is willing to give way to the new generation and coexist with each other.

The artist pursues the truth by balancing and harmonizing the opposed things. As opposed to ‘death’, the problematic consciousness of her early 20s, she reinterpreted ‘birth’. When she looked at a newborn baby, he reminded her of an old man, and at the same time, she thought that he was in a state of freedom and a being of possibility that was in contact with the invisible and unknown boundary. And while acknowledging that feelings of death and emptiness have arisen within her, she actively draws light into her paintings to counteract negative feelings and moves forward with the positivity of life. It is similar to the method of making ‘0 (zero)’ by actively generating an opposing one.

She draws based on what she saw in reality but freely travels through her time and work. She always borrowed elements from the canon of art history, yet her work is related to her own real life. During her school years, she had access to famous art-historical works, both in printed art books and in a variety of popular media. The canon was as close to her life as pop culture and made her dream enjoyable. Her work is a metaphor for life and art, and her personal feelings and experiences in the world she lives in are actively reflected on the canvas.

Currently, Ha Haeng-Eun lives and works in Seoul. She communicates with the world through exhibitions not only in Korea but also abroad.