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The aftermath of the Korean War: traumas and memories in the Korean post-war generation and visual art

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The aftermath of the Korean War: traumas and memories in the Korean post-war generation and visual art

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Content 2023 Margeunsol Yang
The Aftermath of the Korean War:
Traumas and Memories in the Korean Post-War Generation and Visual Art

by

Margeunsol Yang

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSKI SCHOOL OF ART AND DESIGN
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements of the Degree
MASTER OF FINE ARTS

May 2023

ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ ii
Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iii
Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 1
Chapter One: Postwar South Korea ............................................................................................... 3
Postmemory Generations in Korea .................................................................................... 7

Chapter Two: Transmission of Transgenerational Memories ..................................................... 10
Genetic and Environmental Influences of Postmemory .................................................. 12
Cultural and Ritual Influences of Postmemory ................................................................14
Communicative and Technological Influences of Postmemory....................................... 15

Chapter Three: Art in Postwar Korea........................................................................................... 16
Emergence of Dansaekhwa and Koreanness ................................................................... 21
Contemporary Korean Artists ......................................................................................... 24

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 26
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................ 28

iii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 한[han], Sola Yang, oil on canvas, 6x4ft, 2023……………………………………….5
Figure 2 1953 Seoul, Sola Yang, oil on canvas, installation view, 2022……...…..……………..9
Figure 3 6.25 (The Korean War), Yi Su’ok, oil on canvas, 1954………………..…………...…16
Figure 4 Massacre, Yi Chol’ui, oil on canvas, 1951…………………….…………...……..…..17
Figure 5 Mountain and Moon, Kim Whanki, oil on canvas, 130x105cm, 1958………..………18
Figure 6 White Ox, Lee Jung-seob, oil on paper 12 x 16 3/8 in, 1950s………….…….….…….19
Figure 7 Untitled 84-8-16, Chung Sanghwa, acrylic on canvas, 1986…………………..……...22

iv
ABSTRACT

In this paper, I explore the theme of trauma and its physical and psychological representation in
postwar Korean art, and investigate ideas of “Koreanness” in Korean Modern and Contemporary
Art. Although members of the postwar generation did not have direct memories of the war,
South Korean postwar artists represented the history of traumatic experiences through their
inherited and collective memories, and restructured their relationships with repressed historical
tragedies and victims in various ways. In addition, on a personal level, I delineate Korean
inherited memories and intrinsic emotions that led me to explore “Koreanness” and access to the
tragic memories and histories. As a Korean artist living in Western culture, I strive to create a
new, unique language to illuminate trauma across generations and boundaries, while still
honoring the broader heritage of Korea inspired by Korean Modern and Contemporary artists,
including Kim Whanki and Chung Sanghwa.

1
Introduction
In Western society, “postwar” commonly indicates the period after World War II.
Postwar Art is said to begin in the United States, Europe and Japan in 1945, immediately
following the end of that war. By contrast, the postwar period in Korea comes later and is
defined by the physical and psychological destruction caused by the Korean War. The Korean
War (1950-1953), which was also an international catastrophe, resulted in destruction and the
bifurcation of North and South Korea.
1
Korean history contextualizes its national traumas
through three pivotal periods of the 20
th
century: the era of Japanese colonial occupation (1910–
1945), liberation and war (1945–1953), and post-war reconstruction (1954–1960s).
2
In the
immediate wake of the war, the reconstruction accelerated industrial and economic development,
which was accompanied by the rise of abstract art and modernist architecture.
3

Despite South Korea’s economic growth after the war, the country endured decades of
harsh political repression. Student demonstrations in the late 1970s and mid 1980s were cracked
down on harshly, resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths.
4
Military dictatorships imposed strict
censorship on speech and expression, some of which persisted until quite recently, through the
end of the 20th century. Those traumas of life and death, past and present, are deeply interwoven
in Korean society. The memory of historical trauma spreads across generations through familiar
ritual, personal narrative, and media. As Korea transformed itself from a war-torn impoverished

1
J. P. Park, Burglind Jungmann, and Juhyung Rhi, A Companion to Korean Art. Edited by J. P. Park, Burglind Jungmann, and
Juhyung Rhi. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2020: 435.
2
Park, Jungmann and Rhi, 435.

3
Kyunghee Pyun and Jung-Ah Woo, Interpreting Modernism in Korean Art: Fluidity and Fragmentation. Edited by Kyunghee
Pyun and Jung-Ah Woo. New York: Routledge, 2021: 10.
4
Park, Jungmann and Rhi, 466.

2
country into one of the world’s top national economies, the unprecedented social changes of the
postwar era manifested in diverse art styles, themes, movements and discourses.
In this paper, I explore the theme of trauma and its physical and psychological
representation in postwar Korean art, and investigate ideas of “Koreanness” in Korean Modern
and Contemporary Art. Although members of the postwar generation did not have direct
memories of the war, South Korean postwar artists represented the history of traumatic
experiences through their inherited and collective memories, and restructured their relationships
with repressed historical tragedies and victims in various ways. In addition, on a personal level, I
delineate Korean inherited memories and intrinsic emotions that led me to explore “Koreanness”
and access to the tragic memories and histories. As a Korean artist living in Western culture, I
strive to create a new, unique language to illuminate trauma across generations and boundaries,
while still honoring the broader heritage of Korea inspired by Korean Modern and Contemporary
artists, including Kim Whanki and Chung Sanghwa.

3
Chapter One: Postwar South Korea
The Korean War paused in 1953 when America declared an armistice where North and
South Korea ceased fighting. The war resulted in the division of the peninsula at the 38
th
parallel,
a hostile geographic marker creating the North and South Korea of today. The physical and
psychological destruction caused by the Korean War demands that “postwar” in a Korean
context be dated from 1953. However, the Korean War is ongoing: it is paused, not ended. The
division of Korea resulted in mandatory military service for Korean males. My brother, cousins
and many of my friends served in the military for 18

months.
The Korean War brought suffering and poverty, moral degradation, and desperate
conditions to people’s lives in Korea. Although reconstruction was a priority in postwar society,
many Korean people suffered from the immensity of the devastation of the war, the ubiquity of
poverty, and the desperate condition of life.
5
The horrific memories of the Korean War and
military conflicts brought discordant attitudes to the Korean peninsula across multiple
generations in South Korea.
6
According to Dong-Yeon Koh, the hyperbolic anti-communist
atmosphere immediately following the Korean War discouraged the war victims and first
generation survivors from sharing their memories with the younger generation. In the 1960s and
1970s, South Korea was under military dictatorship and its citizens remained extremely cautious
about revealing their traumatic experiences. Even now, there are few personal testimonies about
the Korean War aside from the official government documentation.

5
Uchang Kim, “The Agony of Cultural Construction: Politics and Culture in Modern Korea.” In State and Society in
Contemporary Korea, edited by Hagen Koo, 174. Cornell University Press, 1993: 175.

6
Dong-Yeon Koh, The Korean War and Postmemory Generation: Contemporary Korean Arts and Films. Milton: Taylor and
Francis, 2021: 4.

4
The lack of transmission and the psychological distance between older and younger
generations in postwar South Korea is a crucial factor in what became the aesthetic strategies of
the post-war artists and the phenomenon of “postmemory.”
7
Postmemory is defined by Marianne
Hirsch based on her readings of autobiographical works by second generation writers and visual
artists. According to Hirsch, “postmemory describes the relationship of the second generation to
powerful, often traumatic, experiences that preceded their births but that were nevertheless
transmitted to them so deeply as to seem to constitute memories in their own right.”
8

Postmemory is regarded as a structure of inter and transgenerational transmission of traumatic
experience and knowledge; it is not a movement, method, or idea. It is the inherited memories of
experiences from earlier generations. Although Hirsch describes postmemory in relation to the
second and first generations, postmemory can exist in and haunt every generation after traumatic
events, such as the Korean War.
The younger generation, or third generation of postmemory, has a lack of knowledge
about the Korean War, most likely due to the paucity of historical materials and open discussions
about their ancestors’ tragic experiences during the War. In this way, this ambiguous, distant
connection that they share with their grandparents becomes more significant than their biological
kinships.
9
For my creative process, Hirsch’s theory of a postmemory generation in South Korea
is useful as it allows for a more active approach toward “representing” the tragedy of one’s
ancestors on their own. The temporal and psychological distance between me and my
grandparents’ direct experiences make me pursue alternative ways of accessing tragic memories
and histories through visual art. My paintings contribute to shedding light on under-recognized

7
Koh, 6.

8
Marianne Hirsch, “The Generation of Postmemory.” Poetics today 29, no. 1 (2008): 106.

9
Koh, 5.

5
perspectives and move beyond the retelling and reanimation of traumas which will foster
dialogue across generations, borders, and communities.
10

One of my paintings titled [han] (fig. 1) captures the realities of a country and people
after the Korean War. Han, which is translated as sorrow, anger, and rancor, is a sociocultural
concept of collective feeling of unresolved resentment, pain, and grief that runs in the blood of
all Koreans. According to Kim, han is not only understood as an effect that encapsulates the grief
of historical memory, especially the memory of past collective trauma, but also as the pain that
Koreans experience from their individual life circumstance.
11
[han] portrays a woman wearing
a hanbok and her child on her back, introducing a transgenerational memory of han. I contrast
the work’s dark blues by painting the sunlight cast on the baby with burnt umber to give the
atmosphere a sense of warmth. In addition, I used a palette knife to apply the thick paint to create
an extraordinary rustic texture. Thinking about my mother who told me the stories about my
grandmother during the Korean War, I aimed to express han of Korean women, especially those
who tried to protect their children during the Korean War. Also, [han] evolves around my
efforts to reenact my absent grandmother’s experiences where my memories of her and her life
are scarce. Painting about my grandmother’s han is my own version of remembering my
grandmother’s tragedies.

10
Maj Hasager. “Memory and Trauma: Two Contemporary Art Projects.” In Languages of Trauma, University of Toronto
Press, 2021: 297.
11
Sandra So Hee Chi Kim, "Korean Han and the Postcolonial Afterlives of "The Beauty of
Sorrow"" Korean Studies. Published electronically February 24, 2017.

6

Fig. 1, 한[han], Sola Yang, oil on canvas, 6x4ft, 2023.

7
Postmemory Generations in Korea
Postmemory generations grow up with overwhelming inherited memories, dominated by
narratives that preceded one’s birth or one’s consciousness. Their relationship to the traumatic
events has been defined by ‘post-ness’ and by the powerful but mediated forms of indirect
knowledge such as imaginative investment, projection, and creation.
12
However, this received
memory is sometimes distant from the recall of contemporary witnesses and participants of the
event. The postmemory that Hirsch explains defines both a specifically inter- and trans-
generational act of transfer and the resonant aftereffects of trauma.
13
Since the bodily, psychic,
and affective impact of trauma and its aftermath exceed the bounds of traditional historical
archives and methodologies, postmemory helps the second and third generations to best carry the
victims’ stories forward without appropriating them.
The second and third generations of postwar Korea did not see the war, did not suffer
from the war, and did not experience its direct impacts, but the postmemory still threatens to
overwhelm these further-removed postwar generations. In most cases, the memories of post-
generations cannot be traced back to an experienced origin because most of the people who
experienced the traumatic events of the first generation have passed away. It means that the
conversation with so-called witnesses or survivors is not available any longer. Therefore, the
trauma is not any longer an emotionally and rationally overwhelming experience to individuals.
It does not belong to one person, one generation or one time, but it is a psychosocial reality that
remains traumatic precisely because it spreads across subjects, generations, and times.
14

12
Hirsch, 106.

13
Hirsch, 105.
14
Magda Schmukalla, “Memory as a Wound in Words: On Trans-Generational Trauma, Ethical Memory and Artistic
Speech.” Feminist theory (2022): 4.

8
Since the second generation has more intimate and direct connection to the first wartime
generation, it reveals anger toward fear of failure and inadequacy in response to their parents’
trauma.
15
The fear of the past is shown to be the source of phobic, obsessive panic and
discomfort, but this anger and fear of the past have diminished in the space between the second
and third generation. Therefore, there were questions, uncertainties, and gaps at the beginning for
the third generation.
16
For the second generation, the pressing concern to reconstruct history was
how to navigate one’s life with such memory, while the question for the third generation is what
comes after such memory.
17

One of the distinguishing features from the second to the third generation is their
reactions to the legacy of the traumatic events. The second generation, which is my parents’
generation, characteristically has direct access to information from survivors who tell their
stories, while the third generation, which is my generation, retrieves information mediated
through their parents or other family members. Since my grandparents are no longer living, I
gain information of historical events through documents and archives, vague references, indirect
stories and conversations overhead. The main subject of 1953 Seoul (fig. 2) is the cityscape of
Seoul during and after the Korean war. I recall the moments when I heard the stories of the war
from my mother, the second generation who did not experience the war. The secondhand stories
that are transmitted and mediated through my parents and family members create vague and
abstract images of the Korean War in my artworks.

15
Victoria Aarons and Alan L. Berger. Third-Generation Holocaust Representation Trauma,
History, and Memory. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2017: 8.

16
Aarons and Berger, 8.

17
Aarons and Berger, 31.

9

Fig. 2, 1953 Seoul, Sola Yang, oil on canvas, installation view, 2022.
Along with my personal stories, 1953 Seoul is an expression of continuity perception of
collective memories in Korean society that I gather from the national archives. Fifteen individual
works gathered as one group in a grid implies that individual memories are gathered as a
collective memory. One of my main reference resources for this work is archival photos of
Korean people and landscape during the Korean War from the National War Museum of Korea.
Due to the lack of direct knowledge and the confusion between fact and imagined reality, my
postmemory of the war is both imagined and real and both physical and psychic. The gap
between each canvas represents the distorted and faded memory as it is transmitted from
generation to generation. The imaged ruins from the destruction function as a place of memorial;
a remembrance of the trauma that allows the community to move beyond traumas and toward
comfort and healing. My interpretation of postmemory is an aftertaste of the event and
impressions that I can imagine from afar, a flashing series of isolated images.

10
Chapter Two: Transmission of Transgenerational Memories
All human beings are interconnected with their environmental systems, which include
their family, local community and global community, and have many interrelated developmental
dimensions, including the physical, emotional, cognitive, social and spiritual. The memories are
translated and transferred across the generations through issues of language, concepts of home,
family, belonging, and the lifelong struggle. These themes are interwoven into one’s life and
work; not only as inherited or taught, but also as intrinsic to a sense of oneself.
18
For the second
and third generations, the presence of the past in their present day creates dualistic emotions,
such as foreignness and intimacy, fear and familiarity, and discomfort and hominess. Although
not conveyed in verbal form, the postmemory creates the blurred border between reality and
imagination of the second and third generation.
19

According to Hirsch, transgenerational postmemories are transmitted through the
language of family and the languages of the body that are nonverbal and non-cognitive acts. It is
perhaps the descriptions of this symptomatology that have made it appear as though the post
generation wanted to assert its own victimhood alongside that of the parents.
20
In addition, the
recollection of the traumas bleeds through the generations when it comes to displacement and
loss. The collective memory of the first generations, the story about how it happened with the
pictures that lock the story in their minds, keep glowing across generations. The vivid images of

18
Naomi Shmuel, “The Presence of Absence; Postmemory in My Life.” In Psychoanalytic and Cultural Aspects of Trauma and
the Holocaust : Between Postmemory and Postmemorial Work. Edited by Rony Alfandary and Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz.
First edition. 140. Abingdon, Oxon;: Routledge, 2023.

19
Naama Reshef, “Where’s the Little Girl? What Little Girl? Was there Ever a Little Girl?” In Psychoanalytic and Cultural
Aspects of Trauma and the Holocaust : Between Postmemory and Postmemorial Work. Edited by Rony Alfandary and Judith
Tydor Baumel-Schwartz. First edition. 127. Abingdon, Oxon ;: Routledge, 2023.

20
Hirsch, 112.

11
collective memories are shared through oral tradition and transgenerational passing-on, and those
vivid images of memories belong to multiple generations.
21

21
Hasager, 218.

12
Genetic and Environmental Influences of Postmemory
According to Derezotes, trauma is an unavoidable life experience which is perpetrated by
people on people, such as in child abuse, domestic violence, or war. It is known to involve
complex interactions between the individual, family, and culture. Every human response to
trauma influences not only the individual across the life span but also the traits of their
descendants. People remember powerful memories because organisms tend to survive from
dangers in their environment and avoid similar experiences again. Traumatic memories influence
biological, psychological, social and spiritual elements. Many impacts of trauma are mitigated
not only by the nature of the traumatizing threat but also by a multitude of other genetic and
environmental influences within family, culture, and community.
22

The memories are inherited with the genetic influences that can be passed on to a person
by his or her parents through genome. Although some scientists do not yet even agree on what a
“gene” is, many so-called personality traits are largely genetic. When people encounter certain
intense environmental conditions, they might react with unusual behaviors, physiological
responses, and even anatomical changes. Such developmental changes can interact with genetic
factors to influence both individual development and intergenerational evolution.
23

Environmental influences also affect post-memory which result in emotional, cognitive, social,
and other changes in the person.
24
According to Derezotes, postmemory is strongly associated
with the parents’ level of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and violent behaviors. The
traumatic experience of parents may affect their ability to care for and protect their children.

22
David S. Derezotes, Transforming Historical Trauma through Dialogue. Los Angeles: SAGE, 2014:2.

23
Derezotes, 8

24
Derezotes, 3.

13
Also, children's gender, age and birth order are associated with their parents’ post trauma
symptoms.
25
The factors in the family, culture, and community such as child maltreatment,
poverty or racism are common environmental influences on transgenerational traumas.

25
Derezotes, 20

14
Cultural and Ritual Influences of Postmemory
When survivors who encounter the traumatic events become fewer, what remains is the
symbolic forms and rituals of cultural memory. Cultural memory is an institutionalized form of
memory that happens when landscapes, buildings, public ceremonies, and narratives are arranged
to make connections between those who remember and those historical artifacts, such as
documents and facts that remind people of the events. Cultural memory allows second and third
generation members who cannot connect to the historical events through interpersonal
encounters relate to these events by adopting and cultivating a shared cultural identity.
26

From the perspective of a cultural memory, the connection to past events is established in
shared rituals, narratives and designs. These provide individuals and communities in the present
with a sense of historical belonging and responsibility. For example, the South Korean
government established Memorial Day in 1956 to commemorate veterans and all those who died
for the country. On Memorial Day, June 6
th
, my family and I memorializedd the Korean War by
participating in an annual flag hoisting ceremony in Korea. Not only the government, but also
private companies and educational institutes sponsor programs and campaigns to direct public
attention towards the memorial of the Korean War. Their efforts and memorial sites such as
museums or monuments remind Koreans of traumatic historical events.
27

26
Schmukalla, 5.
27
Schmukalla, 5.

15
Communicative and Technological Influences of Postmemory
Communicative memory is a form of unstructured memory which is passed on both
orally and sensually in the everyday interactions of individuals and communities. As technology
develops, the emergence of databases and search engines has connected this memory with
numerous links between memory fragments. These memory fragments once belonged to living
people, but they are now viewed, related, and edited by search engines, websites, and social
networks. The emergence of new technology helps communities to share knowledge that was
previously difficult to access or understand. The third generation can discover the records of the
past events such as names, faces, and places, where their parents could not. New discoveries
created by network technologies have supported families in finding missing relatives, as well as
discrepancies in other memories.
28

This communicative memory and databases shape the third generation’s personal
memory in a new way. The details of memory are preserved with great care and accuracy with
the use of literature, personal diaries, static and video cameras, documentation, and constant
investigation by technology platforms. The third generation can co-experience traumatic events
through communication technologies such as television, the Internet, and film today. Thus, the
memory patterns changed from personal to collective, mediated by the connected society
followed by technological affordances and digital accuracy.
29

28
Oshri Bar-Gil, “Never Forget – The Net Will Remember.” In Psychoanalytic and Cultural Aspects of Trauma and the
Holocaust : Between Postmemory and Postmemorial Work. Edited by Rony Alfandary and Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz. First
edition. 87-105. Abingdon, Oxon ;: Routledge, 2023: 88.

29
Bar-Gil, 91.

16
Chapter Three: Art in Postwar Korea
During the Korean war, some artists, such as Yi Su-ok and Yi Chol-ui, represented the
war images of battle, of massacre, of people fleeing their homes, of refugee camps, and of cities
and villages in ruins. The paintings are limited in subject matter and most of them are semi-
abstract, allegorical, and suggestive rather than descriptive and figurative. One of the important
examples of artistic representations of the Korean War is Yi Su-ok’s 6.25 (The Korean War) (fig.
3). Yi’s work expresses a familiar scene during the Korean War with his impression as witness to
the city’s ruin and refugees through cubist form. Another important example of war paintings is
Yi Chol’ui’s painting Massacre (fig. 4). This painting is a recording from the artist’s memory of
an actual scene of the brutal killings that often took place before and during the war. The
massacre takes place in the dark and the figures, painted as dark silhouettes, are forming an
ominous presence against the dim and hazy moonlight. The picture is rendered with very coarse
brushwork and emphatic contrast of lights and darks.

Fig. 3, Yi, Su’ok, “6.25 (The Korean War),” Oil on Canvas, 1954.

17

Fig. 4, Yi, Chol’ui, “Massacre,” Oil on Canvas, 1951.
After the Korean War, the confidence of real democracy and rising personal income
made it possible for the masses to travel abroad. The travels away from their homeland made
South Koreans look back and reflect on their cultural background and nationality. The exposure
to foreign lands and different ethnicities causes them to ask themselves such questions like:
“Who am I?” and “What is mine?” This exploration of identity and “Koreanness” became
embedded in their artworks, either consciously or not. Interacting with foreigners and the
outside-in perspective also gave these artists frequent reminders that there were two Koreas and
the division between the two Koreas became a conspicuous theme in the work of overseas
artists.
30
Despite the impact of the war, their works deal less specifically with the tragedy of the
Korean War and instead touch more upon the larger issue of human existence.
31

Kim Whanki (1913-1974), who is a leading figure of Korean modern paintings,
recounted his reaffirmation of his Korean identity when he lived in Paris. Kim stated that to be

30
Kwak, Heashin. “Division and Diaspora in Korean Contemporary Art.” Wasafiri 33, no. 4 (2018): 53.
31
Koh, 10.

18
global, one should embrace one’s own national identity. Translated by Youngin Arial Kim, Kim
Whanki said: “My paintings are by an Asian. It is by a Korean by no means…. It seems to me
that art is a powerful song of a nation. Through the experience of leaving my country, I grew to
know, represent, and thought more about it.”
32
Kim painted Mountain and Moon (fig. 5) in
Paris, including a subject dear to the artist’s heart, which is nature in Korea. Although simplified
into geometric shapes and lines, the work presents both figurative and abstract features of the
mountains and the moon. The painting consists of five cardinal colors in Korean tradition: red,
yellow, blue, white, and black.
33

Fig. 5, Kim Whanki, “Mountain and Moon,” 130x105cm, Oil on Canvas, 1958.
In the decades after the Korean War, there was a rise of abstract art and modernist
architecture. Korean avant-garde artists found innovative ways to assert a new form of
“Koreanness.” Through happenings, performance art, and other formalist experiments inspired

32
Kim Whanki. Eodiseo mueosidoeeo dasi mannarya [where, in what form, shall we meet again?]. Whanki Museum, 211, 2005.

33
Virginia Moon, Min-gi Kang, Joan Kee, Kim Inhye, Kim Yisoon, Kwon Heangga, Mok Soohyun, and Nora Noh. The Space
between: The Modern in Korean Art. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 228, 2022.

19
by Western and Japanese artists, Korean artists resisted the military dictatorship and other
political changes after the Korean War. The unprecedented social, economic, and political
changes during the postwar era manifested in diverse art styles, themes, movements, and
discourse.
34

With the introduction of foreign media after the war, Korean oil painters and ink
practitioners began to take sides as to whose art represented “Koreanness.” Some Korean oil
painters opted to return to the traditional style of Korean ink. While not all painters switched
back to Korean ink after receiving a Westernized art education, their works exemplify the dual
identities of native and foreign seeded in Korean art. Throughout their lifetimes, these artists
would constantly ask themselves the questions: “How does one work in the Western medium of
oil paint and still retain one’s Korean identity?”
35
Each artist strove to answer this question in his
or her own way.

Fig. 6, Lee Jung-seob “White Ox,” 12 x 16 3/8 in, Oil on Paper, 1950s.

34
Pyun and Woo, 10.

35
Moon et al, The Space between: The Modern in Korean Art, 228.

20
One of the oil painters during the postwar period, Lee Jung-seob (1916-1956), often
painted white oxen as a subject for his painting, which is a symbol of the Korean people’s
endurance. Lee was born in Korea during the colonial period, and thus he spent his youth
contemplating their Korean identity and expressing Korean ethnicity. While he used a Western
paintbrush, he tried to demonstrate the characteristic of Korean calligraphy using a single
brushstroke technique. Lee directly and indirectly influenced the generation of artists who began
to practice art after the Korean War. The generation of Lee Jung-seob and Kim Whanki’s
practices and ideas served as the foundation for the progress of the next generation those who
would live and breathe contemporary Western art trends, pursue abstraction with a focus on the
materiality and painterly nature of the canvas, and be known as the founders of Dansaekhwa.

21
Emergence of Dansaekhwa and Koreanness
The young generation of artists that emerged as the new avant-garde in the postwar
Korean art community believed that postwar Korea had close affinities with postwar Europe. The
members of the so-called Informel movement were part of the generation that fought in the
Korean War, or that experienced the aftermath of the war. In many Korean post-war paintings,
the theme of trauma of the war is represented within the content, while in the subject of the
works, trauma could be both directly and indirectly present. Otherwise, it is embodied through
the background or the context of the works that could exist as underlying meaning for those
works. The presence of trauma appears in the artworks in different forms such as figuration,
abstraction and minimalism.
36

Influenced by the informel art in France, as well as American abstract expressionism,
Korean Informel, which is also known as Dansaekhwa, was a mode of painting that was
nonrepresentational and unbound by any structures. The Informel artists professed a new mode
of expression which rejects painterly finesse and correct composition and aims to capture the
emotions of personal experiences of the Korean War. Dansaekhwa, which literally means
monochrome painting, refers to large abstract paintings painted in neutral colors such as white,
black and brown. Their philosophy in art manifested itself in mural-scale paintings covered with
thick layers of paint in vivid colors or a dark palette applied in vigorous brushstrokes and
gestures. The absence of figures and recognizable forms in their paintings strengthens the content
of physical and psychical trauma because the abstract forms on their own produce a sense of
fear, danger and uncertainty in the artworks.
37

36
Dumith Kulasekara, “Representation of Trauma in Contemporary Arts.” Athens Journal of Humanities and Arts 4, no. 1
(2016): 35.

37
Roe, 71.

22
Although “Koreanness” is hard to be defined as one method or style, the Korean spirit
was present in the distinctive process and numerous materials of Danseakhwa. Danseakhwa
artists made their paintings by the repetition of certain actions as indications of a Korean affinity
to nature. In addition, some of them incorporate or refer to Korean ink painting by using
traditional Korean paper called hanji, which is often used for ink painting and calligraphy.
Despite the influences by Western abstraction, the Danseakhwa artists tried to express
“Koreanness” through their own creative processes and traditional Korean materials.
38

Dansaekhwa is regarded as a central artistic development in postwar Korea which offers a
fundamentally different approach to modernist abstraction.

Fig. 7, Chung Sanghwa, “Untitled 84-8-16,” Acrylic on Canvas, 1986.
Most Danseakhwa artists witnessed decades of tumultuous political and social
transformations in Korea after the war. One of the most renowned Dansaekhwa artists is Chung
Sanghwa, who makes canvases featuring dark palettes as a response to the fear and instability

38
Park, Jungmann and Rhi, 441.

23
wrought by the Korean War. According to Koh, the theme of the Korean war has rarely been
utilized in Korean contemporary art under the movement of Dansaekhwa,where the violent
image of the war is relatively absent.
39
Rather, Dansaekhwa artists immediate postwar condition
through their use of irregular textural effects, thick matier, and darker hues.
Untitled 84-8-16 (fig. 7) is Chung’s signature monochromatic gridded painting. To create
this gridded painting, Chung applies ten or more thick layers of paint, glue, and kaolin clay to a
stretched canvas. Once dry, he rolls, compresses, folds, or scores the canvas to crack its façade
and tear them off in pieces with a knife. Then, he fills in the negative spots with acrylic paint.
This labor-intensive process is repeated in various iterations, generating variable compositions
where the surface cracks unpredictably as it dries at multiple rates.
40
Inspired by Dansaekhwa
artists and their process, I repetitively apply paints on canvases, resulting in multilayered, tactile
monochromatic surfaces through a meditative process. The expressive gestural marks and
monochromatic colors in my paintings are inspired by Korean ink painting and Danseakhwa,
representing my personalities, ethnicities, and choices.

39
Koh, 10.

40
Kim, Taeyi. “Chung Sang Hwa.” Art and AsiaPacific, no. 125 (2021): 85.

24
Contemporary Korean Artists
Since the Korean War was not fully represented or illustrated in visual art, it seems rather
difficult to reconstruct the Korean War through surviving artwork from the war period.
Following the end of the Korean War, South Korea entered the international community of
advanced nations. South Koreans have long felt isolated by sometimes hostile geography,
surrounded by the seas and communists to the north of a DMZ. These environments evoke
themes of borders and division in Korean society, which cause strong “Koreanness” to be
prevalent in the psyche of Koreans, as well as an implicit sense of both physical and invisible
barriers that separate people from other countries and cultures.
41
In addition, new media, new
ideas, and a determination by artists to continue to make their creations resulted in the modern
legacy of duality with foreign and Korean influences prevailing in some iteration, contributing to
Korean art today.
42

Born and raised in Korea, I have spent the ensuing years living and studying in New
York and Los Angeles. As a Korean artist living in the United States, I always have mixed
feelings of isolation as an alien, nostalgia for home, longing for my family, and desire for a
stable community. In my paintings, these complex emotions are expressed in personal
dimensions, yet can be communicated through a collective community experience. The main
theme of my artworks is the awareness of my emotions and personal stories about my family in
Korea. Also, the shared experiences of destruction and ruptures in Korean histories offered the
forgotten narratives of the past in my paintings. Embracing the broader heritage from where I

41
Kwak, 53.

42
Moon, 244.

25
came from, I present my identity as a diasporic Korean artist who is aware of memory and
history from the traumatic Korean war.

26
Conclusion
The Korean War years (1950s) are regarded as a void in Korean modern art history: the
period has been considered a temporary standstill in artistic activities and productions.
Furthermore, the art representing the war has been generally disregarded as lacking artistic value
or critical interest. Even though the academic evaluation and criticism of Korean war paintings
are depreciated, the relationship between the Korean War and the visual arts is significant,
despite some detachment. The war and the aftermath of the war became the crucial contexts for
shaping an avant-garde spirit in the Korean art scene, which was equipped with a rebellious
agenda and experimental art practices.
43

Postmemory is a powerful form of memory because its connection to its object or source
is mediated not through recollection but through an imaginative investment and creation. The
interviews, written stories, and testimonies of the people who experienced the Korean War
became the only ways for postmemory generations to learn and forge the traumatic experiences
of war. Korean postwar artists used these uncertain sources to work with the issues of
remembrance and representation of historical tragedies, while departing from traditional
definitions of authentic documentation of collective traumatic memories.
44
The war was an
immediate reality that was represented through different means by artists during the war years
and continued to be a compelling concern for postwar artists decades later. In contemporary art,
I, who is third generation artist, try to reconstruct Korean history in order to figure out what is
“Koreanness.” Inspired by my grandparent’s encounters with the Korean War and my own
family histories of survival, uprising and immigration, many I try to recreate the past and fill in

43
Roe, 75.

44
Koh, 7.

27
gaps between generations. The stories of the war and traumas still exist on the periphery of
younger Koreans’ consciousnesses around the margins of their lives.

28
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract In this paper, I explore the theme of trauma and its physical and psychological representation in postwar Korean art, and investigate ideas of “Koreanness” in Korean Modern and Contemporary Art. Although members of the postwar generation did not have direct memories of the war, South Korean postwar artists represented the history of traumatic experiences through their inherited and collective memories, and restructured their relationships with repressed historical tragedies and victims in various ways. In addition, on a personal level, I delineate Korean inherited memories and intrinsic emotions that led me to explore “Koreanness” and access to the tragic memories and histories. As a Korean artist living in Western culture, I strive to create a new, unique language to illuminate trauma across generations and boundaries, while still honoring the broader heritage of Korea inspired by Korean Modern and Contemporary artists, including Kim Whanki and Chung Sanghwa.

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Creator Yang, Margeunsol (author)

Core Title The aftermath of the Korean War: traumas and memories in the Korean post-war generation and visual art

School Roski School of Art and Design

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Fine Arts

Degree Conferral Date 2023-05

Publication Date 04/05/2023

Defense Date 04/05/2023

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Dansaekhwa,Korean art,Korean contemporary art,Korean history,Korean modern art,Korean painting,Korean postwar art,Korean postwar generation,Korean War,OAI-PMH Harvest,post generation,post traumas,postmemory,postwar art,visual art

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