Jeonnam Museum of Art has been striving to explore and study the legacy of deceased artists who were once active in the Jeonnam region (Jeollanam-do Province) so that their artistic achievements can be shared with provincial residents and be firmly etched in Korea’s modern and contemporary art history. Ko Wha-hum Invitation Exhibition: At Last in Search of My Own White Hill is part of this long-term project initiated by our museum. Born in Gurye, Jeollanam-do Province, Ko Wha-hum (1923–1999) graduated from Jeonju Normal School and studied fine art at the Department of Painting at Ryokuinsha Painting School in Tokyo, Japan. Starting from the 1970s, his White Hill (also sometimes translated as “White Beach”) series continued to occupy the lion’s share of his oil painting work. The series is characterized by lyrical colors emanating from silvery-white waves and shadows undulating on the surface of the sea.

The exhibition’s subtitle At Last in Search of My Own White Hill was derived from the artist’s essay Notes on the White Hill, which he composed on squared manuscript paper after he retired as a professor at Wonkwang University’s College of Fine Art. “[After retirement] I was filled with regret but at the same time was thrilled with expectations — expectations that perhaps I could at last embark on a carefree journey to find my own white hill, to find its truth,” he wrote in this essay. This excerpt amply reveals just how important the concept of the white hill was in his artistic world. Baegan, the actual Korean e-x-p-r-e-s-s-i-o-n he used for “white hill,” is not a word found in dictionaries. He made it up perhaps to verbally represent the utopia he had been dreaming of. According to the artist, the white hill is not a tangible state but a hill he misses and wishes to visit someday, a blank space nestled in his empty heart waiting for the truth. This notion manifests the sense of love and romance he instilled in his work.

In addition to being a passionate artist, Ko was an avid educator. In particular, he strived to popularize fine art and its culture through watercolors. In fact, this exhibition will present a number of his never-before-seen watercolor paintings. He was also the artistic companion to his wife Kim Insook who majored in textile art. Indeed, many of Kim’s embroidery works were based on Ko’s rough sketches, and some of these works will be displayed in this exhibition.

Departing from the conventional structure of retrospective exhibitions, where the artist’s works are usually arranged in chronological order, this exhibition aims to explore diverse facets of Ko Wha-hum as a human being, an artist and educator who also served as his wife’s artistic supporter and partner. “Am I gleaning fragments of my life on my own white hill? Or has the white hill long made itself at home within my heart and been gleaning fragments of my life?” he questions at one point in his essay. In the same manner, this exhibition consists of fragments of Ko’s life linked together one at a time, and we hope that it will provide visitors an opportunity to finally find and explore his white hill.

Ko Wha-hum