Jeonghyo Kim

2.29 Becoming A/r/tography: A Journey to Inquire Myself through Practicing Watercolour Paintings in Jeju Island (Paper)

Jeonghyo Kim – Gyeongin National University of Education, lncheon, South Korea

Abstract:

I have been living as a professor, researcher, and visual artist in the Department of Art Education at the National University of Education in South Korea. In my presentation, I would like to share the process of practicing A/r/tography while painting watercolours. As I entered my sabbatical year, I began living on Jeju Island for five months, dragging my tired body. I started every morning facing Beomseom island, which is on the horizon between the sea and the sky. It was a great comfort to me and gave me hope. Beomseom Island, where one large island and one small island face each other. Beomseom Island gradually seeped into my daily life. Every morning, I would carry a lunch box and a backpack, walk the Olle Trail, and when I returned, I would open my painting tools. My dreams had become as turbid as my age, but they became clear again when I picked up the brush. Beomseom Island sometimes looked dim as time piled up, but when the morning sunlight shone on it, it became splendid again. When I mixed paint in water and painted it layer by layer with transparent, achromatic colours, it became turbid, but it never lost its original transparency. One evening, when time seemed to have stopped, the stories that had been squirming between the intertwined roofs gathered in Beomseom Island as my dreams and colours. I encountered natural phenomena in Jeju Island that I had not recognized before, and that experience was metaphorically expressed in about 25 watercolour paintings. From the perspective of ‘becoming A/r/tography,’ I would like to present how the aesthetic experiences of ‘painting with watercolours in Jeju Island’ influenced the formation of my identity as a visual artist, professor, and researcher.