CHA DAEYOUNG KOREA, b. 1958

by Jang Joon-seok (Art Critic, Director of the Korea Art Criticism Research Institute)

 

In the quiet countryside of Yangji-myeon, Yongin, artist Cha Dae-Young continues his lifelong dialogue with nature. His practice, which appears still and constant, evolves with deep, deliberate slowness—like a great vessel shifting course almost imperceptibly. For decades, Cha has pursued a world of wu wei and tranquility (無爲寂靜)—a creative rhythm that follows the natural flow of things, embracing stillness, harmony, and quiet transformation.

Early in his career, Cha developed a visual language rooted in Korean dansaekhwa, rendering subtle floral forms in delicate monochromatic tones. These weren’t merely images of flowers, but emotional echoes—fragile silhouettes infused with a uniquely Korean sensibility. His work has never aimed to represent nature, but to resonate with it, inviting viewers into the silent breath between presence and absence.

In recent years, Cha’s The Moment series has turned toward mountains—timeless symbols of presence, solitude, and stillness. These are not traditional landscapes but distilled sensations: mountains abstracted into serene configurations of light, hue, and space. In tones of muted gray, radiant red, snow-lit white, and soft yellow, his images evoke not only natural forms but states of being. As he puts it, “I abandoned color, only to rediscover it.” The colors he paints now are not of pigment alone—but of perception, emotion, and inner quiet.

His canvases become spaces where opposites merge—reduction and diffusion, transparency and opacity, color and colorlessness. It is here that he captures the invisible movements of nature, the slow unfolding of light and atmosphere, the breath of time. His work explores a kind of visual philosophy: the harmony of cheon·ji·in (天地人)—heaven, earth, and human—as it filters through the ever-changing shape and breath of mountains.

This diffusion is not explosive but elemental—like mist settling over a slope or warmth permeating the earth. It is the essence of a mountain not in outline but in energy. The mystery of Cha’s work lies in this subtle interplay—between what is shown and what is suggested, what is felt and what is known.

His creative process is akin to inner cultivation (sushin, 修身)—a quiet, sustained attentiveness to the fundamental nature of things. Through it, he has found the rare ability to express both the sensory and the spiritual, blending formal restraint with deep emotion. His images hold the tension of transparency and opacity, like a breath between presence and disappearance.

Though full unity between artist and subject is perhaps impossible, Cha's work suggests a kind of companionate gaze—an enduring presence shared across the canvas. Layer by layer, he builds up, erases, and rebuilds, creating spaces not just to look at but to enter. His materials are finite, yet the world he opens is infinite.

Cha Dae-Young captures not simply the appearance of mountains, but their ontological force—their being. His aim is not to invent or reproduce form, but to embody its essence. In this way, painting and ontology become structurally aligned. No art is truly non-representational, for even the unseen must be made visible. Cha renders visible the invisible energy that mountains hold, fulfilling a deeply personal and profoundly aesthetic task.

As American critic Dave Hickey once proposed, great contemporary art can be both deeply felt and intellectually refined—accessible yet elevated. Cha’s paintings share this balance. They speak quietly, with calm authority, in a language that feels both timeless and immediate. His use of familiar motifs makes the work approachable, while its depth and sensitivity offer space for contemplation.

Ultimately, his art becomes a fusion of past and present, tradition and innovation, form and atmosphere. Within a single frame, diverse techniques and expressions converge and are absorbed—diffused—into something more than the sum of their parts. This harmony of tradition and modernity, rooted in Korean aesthetics but resonant far beyond, is what makes Cha Dae-Young’s work truly unique: at once Korean, contemporary, and universal.