Heeyoung Noh (1995) is a figurative painter who explores themes of colonial trauma and diaspora by reproducing body images from South Korea. She tells us about her work in this interview.
For decades, modern Korea has been thinking about its own identity; it has discovered and shaped it, finally, on the basis of identity elements that no external influence has managed to overturn. Your research seems to do the opposite, analysing what, following all the painful events, has somehow broken. Can we perhaps affirm that in order to begin healing, it is necessary to accept and understand the illness?
I like to think of historical trauma, or transgenerational trauma, which I constantly talk about in my work, not as an illness, but as a seed that arrived from the outside, accidentally and suddenly. I found this seed by exploring my identity, without feeling the a priori need to heal something. I believe, however, that this process of exploration has given me great peace and, in this sense, could it be seen as a sort of healing?
Your painting takes on a story that is both intimate and collective. What was the process that led you to identify the relationship between mother and daughter as the core of transgenerational trauma?
Korea is a country that has changed dramatically culturally, socially and economically: it is not surprising that there is such a large gap between generations. My mother's mother, my grandmother, survived as a woman in a deeply patriarchal society. My mother would say to me, “Your grandmother had a difficult life as a woman and I don't know why she wants to pass it on to me,” but then she would say that it was not her fault. This patriarchal and anti-feminist society planted a traumatic seed in my grandmother's heart, which germinated and grew into my mother.
In Italy, unfortunately, there has been no longer a cultural relationship with spas and public baths since the fall of the Roman Empire. It is surprising to discover how important Jjimjilbang (public baths) are in Korea. Could you tell us how they are experienced and how they are linked to the history of the country?
The history of public baths in Korea is not very long. Sure, Koreans have always bathed, but it was mostly on special occasions, such as Dan-o or holidays, or for therapeutic purposes. However, the reason why public baths became popular culturally is a bit different. In the late 1890s and early 1900s, during the opening up of Korea, leading figures in the Enlightenment movement advocated the establishment of public baths, arguing that hygiene and urban cleanliness were necessary to become a civilised country, and the culture of scrubbing off dead skin cells in baths became popular as Korea entered the modern era. Interestingly, during the Japanese colonisation of Korea, the culture of scrubbing began to take on an inferiority complex that went beyond the concept of cleanliness and hygiene. The Japanese defined the Koreans as impure and therefore backward in terms of progress, a dominant discourse that continued to be replicated in other cultures. This perception of being colonised by the Japanese because they were dirtier led to the development of a culture of compulsive rubbing (called “Ttaemiri” by the Koreans). I have been working on the theme of rubbing because I find it interesting that Ttaemiri is linked to such a historical trauma.
Your studies took you from Seoul to Glasgow. How do you think this experience influenced your artistic research?
My experience at Glasgow School of Art was really enjoyable and fruitful, but it’s not just because I did the MFA at Glasgow School of Art that I made these artistic developments. Moving from Korea and living in another country was like breaking an egg, like in Demian’s story: it was a big shock, but at the same time it gave me the opportunity to explore myself with constant external stimuli. In Korea, in particular, there is an atmosphere that makes you feel like you are going to get into big trouble if you don’t follow the socially prescribed life path, and that’s why I lived as a normal Korean for so many years. In my country, it was hard to find people who were different from me. Everyone was Asian with dark hair, everyone had similar dreams and everyone seemed to be walking in the same direction. It wasn’t until I left Korea and settled in Scotland that I understood my identity as an Asian woman. From hair colour to religion, nothing was the same and I think that’s how I started exploring the identity of “Heeyoung Noh.” Of course, identity is fluid like water, so there’s no rigidly fixed identity, but I think I was able to find a world of me that was different from others.
Every education depends on many factors, first and foremost the way in which the Academy or University you attend chooses to treat the subject taught. Having studied both in Korea and Scotland, do you think that with respect to the way in which painting is taught there are aspects that are more or less explored depending on the historical-artistic context?
I studied Western Painting at Sungshin Women’s University in South Korea. As the name of the course suggests, the program of studies at my university in Korea was organised around the in-depth exploration of Western painting techniques, especially oil and acrylic. I studied the techniques and theories of painting, for example how to reproduce Rembrandt’s light in paintings, or the propulsion in Caravaggio’s paintings, which had a great influence on the way I worked with 2D visual art as a method. While in Korea I learned to use painting as a method more freely, Glasgow was a time to explore what I wanted to say with my formative language. I feel that the combination of the technique-oriented training I received in Korea and the research-oriented training I received in the UK has made my work qualitatively stronger.
The relationship with nudity, in your works, goes beyond the context of representation. How did this reflection on the body arise? How did it evolve?
A naked person has no ethics; in a nude painting there are no clothes to describe the social role or personality of the character, who is simply shown as he was at the beginning. I thought that this characteristic of nude painting is in line with my theme (transgenerational trauma), which is intimate and private, but at the same time has universal characteristics. I believe that through the image of the naked body one can find a more authentic self.
