Song Jin Hwa is a Korean female sculptor. Korea has great social change in the past 30 years. The changing speed is very fast and all nations are forced to adapt such social changes. Especially female or alienated people sacrificed their identity and life in such great chaos called dynamism. Although relative right for female has been formed in 2010, yet for women in 40s or 50s, the youth has already been passed. When these women realize to focus on themselves after sacrificed their own lives for their husbands and children, the most precious time has gone. There is no work of Picarro in Youth as the title of Red Flower. Such grief is included in the work by Korean sculptor Song Jin Hwa.

There are two varieties in modern art from its contents. One is pathos, formulating passions coming out from mind; the other is ethos, formulating rational roles from intelligence or ethical principle. Rational form is mainly found in modernism, which is the need of times of great success, and it is the way popular at present.  Pathos is the form belonging to romantic tradition, sharing with expressionism. Pathos is based on self life compared to ethos. The reason is that it is impossible to arouse passion towards other life than self life. Therefore, the most important thing for artist in taking pathos form is that the artistic form is aroused from his or her own life. Song Jin Hwa’s art is thoroughly from her own life. She had her childhood in village and experienced nature, and she experienced great difficulty after having her life of art. She leads difficult marriage. She quit arts for some time and wandered because of art will. The split between sin that forced onto female in Korea and art that forced her to getting back her life is very naturally brought out.

Song Jin Hwa finally gave up the comfort from self sacrifice in marriage that sought by most women, and she bravely chose the romantic journey via arts. Such adventure lasted for several decades.

Song Jin Hwa’s artistic adventure is started from walking in the mountain and river and finding abandoned wood in the downtown. That abandoned and the feeling of thrown away are the main key words in her arts. The saddest thing is the feeling that abandoned by someone. It is great grief that became useless from which used by someone. It is the same to wood, garbage, person, lover or anything else. Song Jin Hwa expressed her life and inner passion on the abandoned things. In this case the abandoned things became her life. We can feel grief from her work because of this. We feel the torture as if salt onto wound or friction between metals, but we also feel warmth. Song Jin Hwa’s wound is very ache that is hardly to compare with that of man. The main point is how to overcome. Tolerance and retrocedence who overcome difficulties are expressed in her works. Therefore we can accept her works without any refusing feelings that is directly expressed her feelings. The abandoned wood is cut and painted red, showing praise on her youth achievement of Picarro that was not completed and also comfort on all the things abandoned. Song Jin Hwa’s life is fluctuated greatly but she hasn’t take feminism. Because she insists on equality, and she knows life is full of anxiety that also makes life colorful.

- Lee Jin Myung, Curator of ARTSIDE Gallery