Nho Wonhee was a member of 'Reality and Utterance,' and has been continuously deliberating the ways art operates in life, based on the language of critical realism. "Holding on to the 'content' she wishes to speak of," Nho has been painting about human life and the reality of society. She also contemplated methods of recording and representing in order to get closer to the substantiality of suffering while corresponding with the pain of others. The violent reality of the barely endurable 'thin land,' that is, the 'Korean society,' must have made Nho sensitive to suffering. Keeping a critical awareness about our society's structural violence, Nho takes a step back from the conventional image of representation of violence and observes the reality in front of her eyes through a reflective witness' perspective.

Nho's brushstrokes are not crafted with a refined touch but are indwelled with various emotions and experiences towards life. Her brushstrokes do not have glamorous decoration, expressionist style infested with emotion, precise depiction, nor unhindered touches, but contemplate the detailed grains of suffering. Nho's brushstrokes, as such, are the tactile senses of solidarity. However, we must not rashly interpret her brushstrokes as the artist's sympathy towards the figures in her works and her reaction to their suffering. Instead, it is Nho's demeanor and sentiment in which she tries to carefully observe the lives of individuals and faithfully embody the various shapes of their lives. Nho's paintings reveal her unique sentiments through the formal element of brushstrokes. Her paintings question the viewers about the way in which structural violence endlessly tear apart and interfere with an individual's life. Nho's painterly language is revealed through the touch of her brushstrokes that sincerely records the structure of damage and suffering, rather than analyze it.

Excerpt from “Human life, Use of Painting”  |  Jang Pa