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18 May - 25 June |
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Flower Painter Brings Beauty of Orient to South London
Press Release: 9 May 2006
SOOKJA RHO is known as the 'flower painter' in Korea for her life-long dedication
to painting flowers. Her first UK show at Cat Hill Gallery in London features exquisite paintings of Korean wild flowers. These stunning works are painted in a pigment mixed with stone powder which catches the light and creates the most amazing illuminated colours.
There is an oriental saying that "when drawing flowers and trees, one must find an old garden and observe the subjects from sunrise to sunset." With Rho Sook Ja, it is as if tending them and watching them grow in nature has granted her a special insight into their special beauty.
The subjects of her paintings are the wild flowers of mountains or fields. Her works depict sumptuous scenes where unnamed wild flowers are shown together. She astonishes her audiences by showing how a simple bunch of flowers can spread into a unity of colour. Her message seems to say that anyone can be beautiful when you are in harmony with another.
She shows nature as a well-organised world, where nothing is entirely superior and everything depends on something else. The strong colour of a group of wild flowers backed by a splendid backdrop of green grass provides the exact script for her work. There is almost no distortion of the form in her flowers, preferring to dispose a realistic form of flower on the centre of her canvas and then around it add the images which convey her emotions. Through these arrangements, all her subjects keep their own individuality - even identity - and thereby each flower contains its own unique pleasure. This leads the viewer, inevitably, to the realisation that they are not just simple flowers but companions who have their own lives, sharing with us our sorrows and pleasures.
Visitors to the Cat Hill Gallery will have the opportunity to see 40 of her selected works until 24th June 2006.
Notes to Editors:
1. Sookja Rho graduated from the College of Fine Art at Seoul National University in 1966. Since then she has spent more than four decades in a successful international career in painting, mostly divided between Chinese ink landscapes and oriental colour paintings.
2. The next scheduled show at Cat Hill Gallery is Words by Beckett, from 30th of June to 6th of August, a celebration of the work of Samuel Beckett. Details of the participant artists and work will be announced shortly.
Media Enquiries:
Kim Neil - kim@cathill.com
Telephone 020 8687 8195
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