Chung Sang-hwa, Korean Artist Associated with Dansaekhwa, Dies at 93

Chung Sang-hwa, a central figure in Korean modern art, passed away on January 28 after a long illness. He is 93 years old. The news was reported by the Daily Mail. korea times.

Chung is best known for his fondness for Dansaekhwa (or “monochromatic painting”), an abstract art mode that emerged in South Korea in the mid-1970s and sparked new interest in the West in the 21st century.

Derived from Korea’s more expressive, amorphous paintings of the late 1950s and early 1960s, Dansaekhwa is known for its labor-intensive processes, repetitive gestures, and understated color palettes. In addition to Mr. Zheng, practitioners related to Dansaekhwa include Park Seo-bo, Lee Ufan, Yoon Hyung-geun, etc.

In keeping with the concerns of monochrome painting, Zheng’s mature works are produced by repeatedly applying paint, folding the canvas, and peeling the paint to achieve multi-layered surfaces with broken grids. Chung limited himself to one work at a time and avoided accepting any help, often taking him six months or a year to complete a painting.

“Performing the same action over and over again to the point of absurdity is what defines my work,” the painter said during a 2023 solo exhibition at Hyundai Gallery in Seoul.

Mr. Chung was born in 1932 in South Korea during the Japanese colonial period. In 1953, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of Seoul National University. In his early abstract works produced in the turbulent era following the Korean War (1950-53), he employed a gestural visual language of amorphous movement.

However, after moving to Kobe, Japan, in 1969, Cheng became interested in painting as a record of time and process. By the late 1970s, he was creating his signature monochromatic grid canvases.

After the death of his wife in 1977, Chung moved to Paris for 15 years. On January 1, 1992, he returned to South Korea and continued to work until he became seriously ill.

Major retrospective exhibitions of Jung’s work were held at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in Saint-Etienne, France, in 2011 and at the National Museum of Modern Art, South Korea, in 2021.