Art Mora is pleased to present “Traces of Life”, a solo exhibition of veteran Korean artist Young Hie Nam, who has lived through Korea’s turbulent history and expressed her emotions through art. The exhibition features 17 recent works created by cutting and collaging hand-dyed hanji (traditional Korean paper). The opening reception will be held on October 3, 2025 (Chuseok), from 6–8 PM.
Born in 1943 during the Japanese occupation and raised during the Korean War, Nam grew up in a relatively privileged household. At a time when many Korean women could not pursue education, she was able to attend university thanks to her parents, who recognized the changing world. Her parents and grandparents, who quietly preserved Korea’s traditions, instilled in her a deep connection to cultural memory—one that later drew her away from oil painting, despite her Western training, and toward hanji. After marrying fellow artist Youngsub Han, she thrived in an intellectual circle of artists and writers, finding joy in shared creativity.
During the 1970s and 1980s, when Korea’s art scene was swept by Dansaekhwa (monochrome painting), experimental performance, and Minjung art, Nam instead devoted herself to depicting the Korean way of life with her own colors. Patchwork quilts, kites, temple pagodas, rice fields, and schoolgirls in uniform—all became subjects of her canvases. The earthy brown of unpaved roads, the golden hue of ripening grain, the blue of the sea, and the red of camellias formed her essential palette. By the 1990s, she turned to studies of surface and division, reducing forms into simple geometric elements and reinterpreting Korean themes through a more global visual language.
Her work recalls Henri Matisse’s cut-outs, in its method of cutting and arranging shapes of color. Yet Nam’s practice is rooted in her own cultural lineage: rather than painted paper, she uses hanji, whose textures, fibers, and natural depth carry the memory of Korean life. If Matisse explored rhythm and freedom in flat color, Nam reveals subtle layers of Korean sensibility through the way hanji absorbs, overlaps, and breathes.
By the 2020s, she reached a distinctive style of her own—soft pastel hanji layered into simple yet resonant compositions, shifting between abstraction and figuration. The irregularities of the paper—bundled fibers, traces of bark—introduce chance and richness to the work, while overlapping layers create natural depth and perspective. The unpolished, tactile quality of her pieces evokes the quiet perfection of a Joseon white porcelain moon jar: never flawless, yet endlessly compelling.
This exhibition is a testament to 83 years of life, memory, and persistence. Rooted in Korean tradition yet open to the world, Nam’s work offers a resonant visual language that will remain with viewers long after they leave.
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