The Days Were Snowy But Warm

Through old family pictures, Korean artist Oh Myung Hee embarks beholders to a journey of emancipation through her exhibition titled The Days Were Snowy But Warm in the framework of the Personal Structures larger exhibition hosted by the European Cultural Centre.

In The Days Were Snowy But Warm, Oh Myung Hee, explores the pivotal years when traditional South Korea began transforming into a modern-day society. She mixes old Hwajo techniques with new materials and technology, applying it on a series of family photographs. The artist also creates video works for a black lacquered cabinet from Jeju Island, where she spent her summers as a child, bringing those memories forward to our time and space. Through her multimedia artistic expression and her female gaze with a historic distance, the artist mirrors the remarkable journey South Korea has undertaken to become one of the world’s most prosperous nations.

In her quest, Oh Myung Hee is particularly interested in the social changes that occurred amongst South Korean women in 1954. These were partly inspired by Marilyn Monroe’s morale boosting visit to the American troops stationed there, following the armistice in 1953. She juxtaposes the image of a traditional Korean wife in an unassuming, monochromatic dress, seated in a dignified position with scarcely clad, confident and free Monroe standing in front of 17,000 American soldiers on one side. On the other side instead, she put Hye-Seok Nah, the Korean pioneering feminist, writer and artist, elegantly dressed with a luxurious fur collar, l’enfant terrible of her times. Both women ended their lives tragically, Monroe taking her own and Hye Seok Nah in abject poverty. It was while remembering that performance in front of the American troops in Korea that Monroe recollected that “it was snowing but it felt warm, it felt like home”.

This period can be considered as marking a turning point in the relationship between men and women in a male dominated culture, often regarded as a legacy of the Imperial Japanese era. It also marks the beginning of an era of personal liberation and wider social participation of women, the formation of pop art and moulding of a modern society as we know it today.

Oh Myung Hee also contrasts the images of a large Korean family from her father-in-law’s photo album, with two wives on each side, the “main wife (bon-cheo)” and the “second wife (cheop)”, seemingly content. There is a stark contrast in the narrative of these images of solitary women, traditional or not, standing alone and strong, with the image of the two groups of men, tightly squeezed together and uniformly dressed, emanating the strength of a group.

The artist’s working practice in this series is painstaking and time-consuming, requiring great patience and endeavour, reminiscent of traditional female Korean crafts. The large size of her paintings makes the viewer feel part of the memory, a protagonist of the story that is somehow still playing in our times, like the animated videos in her Korean lacquered cabinet. It is in these video works that she makes the memories come alive with movement and music. Using the traditional methods and modern media, she gives a personal, exhilarated touch to these memories of bygone days.

The series of works of art The Days Were Snowy But Warm and Nostalgia shown in this exhibition, also form a part of Oh Myung Hee’s artistic inquiry into the significance of individual and collective memory. Likewise, the birds in her works of art symbolize the yearning of her spirit for utmost freedom. In Oh Myung Hee’s words “Just as in life, my works aim to communicate the message that though we face pain, conflict and innumerable difficulties, spring comes around again, and just like flowers bloom, so does hope and warmth”.

“My works speak of a collective memory,” remarks Oh Myung Hee. “My generation did not directly experience war; nevertheless, we share the pain of our mothers and grandmothers who bore the scars of war. In Korea, the lump in one’s heart that is filled with pain is expressed as Han. At first glance, my works might appear flashy, but a closer look reveals the frailty which resembles the emotions of Han or the DNA of emotions.

A preview to the exhibition can be enjoyed digitally on Google Arts and Culture: https://artsandculture.google.com/story/the-days-were-snowy-but-warm/fAVxlaHfTD_EEA

The exhibition can be visited free of charge until Sunday, 27 November 2022 at Palazzo Mora in Venice, Italy.