In the aspect of Korean aesthetic, ‘the light’ represents a hope for the future beyond the visual shape, having the spiritual and emotional meaning. The artworks of Joon-yeop Jeon are based upon the Korean aesthetic with the theme of the light and the hope. He now tells us the universal value of hope thorough his remarkable landscape artworks breaking out the wall between the west and the east.

To express the concept of ‘the hope and the light’, the artist chose one of the suburb landscapes. Against the general idea of the landscape artists, however, he did not observe it or research it in the same way the other artists did, but felt the scene fully using his five senses instead. He combines the view with the sound, the wind, the light and the fragrance, and ultimately shows us the freshness, the calmness and the grandeur of the space.

- Expression

Jeon used oil painting, as it could be expressed in a diverse way. He bases maximizing the effect of the color and using the texture of the oil painting, and tries different techniques: spreading, soaking and scratching.

When it comes to composition, he focuses on expressing the East Asians’ point of view on the nature. In his paintings, the nature is not categorized from a detached, objective viewpoint under dichotomous thinking of seeing things as an object for aggression, but is an ultimate world in which human beings can harmonize and unify. In that senses, his paintings are originated from ‘Sansoohwa, Traditional East Asian Ink Landscape Painting)’.

Another characteristic of his paintings is the general absence of spatial depth and the flattening of perspective , and which was motivated from Dasijeom Hwabeop. Dasijeom is a bit similar concept to the Cubist painting in the west in a way that it rules out the perspective. Applying this traditional way of East Asian art (seen as modern in the west like cubism), he depicts objects from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. He combines the one-point perspective with the sight seen above and below and even mixes the helicopter outlook and the view from the human in the paintings. As a result, you can read the whole story of the paintings with a range of different angles.

- The Value of the Joon-yeop Jeon’s paintings

‘Hope’ is the one of the universal values, and it makes somebody overcome the negative situation in success. Jeon expresses the invisible but valuable emotion on his whole paintings and wants us to find the peace through his works. This artwork would lead you into the gardens of the light and the woods of the hope.


Furthermore, his artworks transcend barriers between the west and the east. He borrows the western art technique of oil painting as a means of representing the East Asians’ attitude toward nature. You can find the harmony of human and nature in his paintings, which is the main thought East Asians have kept in mind for a long time of history.

In conclusion, Jeons’ paintings have great potential for becoming the Korea’s representative artworks. Dasijeom Hwabeop, which is the hallmark of Korean traditional paintings, is used on his works in a very modern way, and the beauty in the eyes of the Koreans becomes international with his technique of oil-painting. The combination of the west and the east on his paintings shows us that he has got an ability to represent Korea in the World. Now it is the time to get focused on the artist, who sings the universal value of hope, and explore much of his possibilities in his art world.