Review

Hutchin’s gallery was transformed into an East Asian meditative zone by Korean artist/teacher Sei Ryun Chun. “Om”, art which sprouted from Sei Ryun’s morning meditative tea ritual, flowed through the gallery beautifully, paralleling the Buddhist reverence to the flow of time. Sei Ryun’s inspiration from the actual tea particle movements filled the gallery beautifully with simple, basic shapes with a bold an unassuming power. Tea stains were gently embedded in the art, adding color and purpose. The feministic beauty in her art reminded me of the image of Wise Mother, Shin Saimdang. Like Shin Saimdang’s artworks, Sei Ryun’s works contain dedicated beauty of nature and ideal representation of talented Korean female artists.  Metaphors of “round sky and rectangular earth” could be drawn as well as the need to draw connections between the objects themselves and hidden metaphors. The viewer was enticed to delve deeper and reflect on relationships between self and cosmos, self and others, and more profoundly, between self and self. Sei Ryun’s Korean identity was expressed through the use of Korean characters, drums, bojagi, and implied Korean mythologies and feministic beauty melted onto the Korean Culture.

Seung Lee, Professor of Art

Director of Fine Arts and Graduate Studies

Long Island University / C. W. Post Campus

720 Northern Blvd., Brookville, NY 11548