Finding Identity in Sunflowers

Painter Ju tries to show the existence of "me and you"in her paintings of sunflowers

Painter Ju Hee lately is preoccupied with painting flowers, especially sunflowers, a change from the time when she used to paint nature scenes in general. "Do Ju's sunflowers look like real sunflowers?"asks art critic Kim Hyun-hwa in her critique on Ju's art. She says painters paint sunflowers just as they look, but each is different from the others.
The famous sunflowers painted by van Gough, the most famous painting of sunflowers, and the sunflowers painted by Lee In-sung, and Ryu Kyung-chae, two Korean painters who also paint sunflowers often, and those of other painters all look like real sunflowers, but they look different from each other, the art critic says.
She said those flowers look different from each other because they were painted with the painter's dreams, thoughts, ideals and sensitivities.
According to a Greek myth, sunflowers bloomed after the deaths of women who loved Apollo, but failed to get love from him in return.
Sunflowers send their love to the sun from the ground just like a virgin whose love for Apollo burned from far away.
To the art critic, Ju's sunflowers are different in that they try to plant their existence on the earth following the sun, rather than burning with love. They reveal their central parts as if to show their secrets inside, filling the canvases in full.
Ju's work on sunflowers doesn't stimulate memories, internal sadness, burning love, explosive passion and fantasies and myths that hunger for sensitive impacts. Ju also says that she doesn't want to express feelings nor intends to do so, but she wants the existence of "mine or yours"to take place in those flowers, Kim says.
We are different and separate from each other. For Ju, it doesn't make a difference whether it is you or me: Everything is all right with her. Therefore, her sunflowers represent the thing that could be either you or me because they were formed by you and me together. They have me and you in them.
This is evident in other flower paintings,
    as Ju said she painted the entire field although she wanted to paint only the flowers, which means that the field cannot be separated from flowers because it contains the flowers.
She said life and death circulate in flowers and in separated space; trees talk to each other. She disregards life and death, you and me, as she believes they can be united and become one at any time. As in Kim Chun-soo's poem entitled "flower,"which says, "When I called his name he became flowers to me,"and in Ju's sunflower paintings, they became a symbol that you and me became one, the critic says.
A graduate of Sookmyung Women's University Oriental Painting Department and Graduate School, painter Ju serves as a researcher of the university's mural research institute. nw

Painter Ju Hee

sunflower, 114x114cm, painting on korean paper, 2008

fragrance, 60.5x72cm (2ea), painting on korean paper, 2008

fragrance, 65x65cm (2ea), painting on korean paper, 2007