“Reality, for me, is thin land. Standing on this fragile land, I open the mouth in my mind and swallow the ways of the world. Then I capture a part of what I have consumed onto the canvas.”

Nho Wonhee

Nho Wonhee was a member of ‘Reality and Utterance,' which lead Minjung art in the 1980s. She has a firm belief as an artist that life and art should be in conjunction with each other. Nho observes social reality through the perspective that looks at the everyday life of herself and her family. When she faces a laden incident, she then holds up her brush. Using affectionate brushstrokes, she records the lives of the weak, exposed to violence. She consoles the wound of individuals who have been omitted from the grand narrative. The reality of today that Nho has witnessed is precarious, like the land that is about to collapse. Apprehensively shaking is not only a few victims but the lives of all of us, standing on ‘thin land.’ 

The canvas is the ground for experimentation for Nho. She paints on without particular sketches. She first transfers the central motif onto the picture screen and then draws out the periphery narrative afterward. Nho endlessly repeats painting and erasing on the canvas. The will to sincerely depict the reality and the intuitive movement of the brush continuously intersect with each other. She also paints over a painting she has been working on. At times, the figures of the past, not completely erased, faintly surface like apparitions. They are the vestige of contemplation, accumulated beneath the picture screen. 

Nho Wonhee was born in Daegu, Korea, in 1948. While she was working as a journalist for the university’s newspaper in the late 1960s, she started to take an interest in social reality. She received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in painting at the College of Fine Arts, Seoul National University, in 1970 and 1973, respectively. While she was teaching at a university in Daegu after graduating, she encountered an article in Creation and Criticism and befriended individuals who studied at night school. As she realized that art must be in conjunction with life, she deviated from abstract art, which she has been pursuing and started to examine the lives around her. She was a member of ‘Reality and Utterance,’ which lead the Minjung art movement in the 1980s. She held her first solo exhibition in 1977, at Munheon Gallery (Seoul). Since then, she has held solo exhibitions at Grimmadamg Min (Seoul) in 1986, Hakgojae Gallery (Seoul) in 1991, Art Space Pool (Seoul) in 2017, etc. She also participated in numerous group exhibitions at National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Gwacheon, Korea), Seoul Museum of Art (Seoul), Busan Museum of Art (Busan, Korea), Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art (Ansan, Korea), etc. Her works are a part of major national museums such as National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul), Seoul Museum of Art (Seoul), Busan Museum of Art (Busan, Korea), etc.