Meet: Heo Chae-rim (허채림), an artist who creates playful and anthropomorphic paintings and animations of vessels. Upon discovering her colourful creations, I quickly fell in love with her art and was delighted to have the opportunity to speak with her.
Heo’s love for drawing has been with her since she was a child. As she grew, and drawing became something that she was good at, Heo, spent a period working in art education and teaching others the techniques for drawing. It wasn’t until one of Heo’s colleagues and friend unexpectedly and sadly passed away, however, that Heo started drawing her own work. It started when Heo wished to continue the comic works that her colleague and friend had created, so people who admired them could know how they ended. From there, Heo carried on creating works as a way of reminiscing her friend and time spent together. For Heo, art became a space through which she could share her emotions and stories. Over the course of her art career to date, Heo has won several prizes from art competitions, and participated in several group exhibitions, and two solo exhibitions. She is also working as an NFT artist.
Heo believes that relationships expand and form society, and she channels this philosophy into her art. Her pieces set scenes that “tell stories or invite reflection.” Heo’s work features vessels, which have a special meaning to Heo. She observes their myriad of forms as having personalities and “delights in composing interactions and making connections.” Keen to know more about this and what vessels mean to her, I asked if she could explain this to me in more detail. In terms of the artistic sense, noting that the real items do not move, Heo shared with me that through the use of her imagination, she is trying to “address the distance and relationship while I mix and overlap them while drawing or painting the situation when they form a relationship. In terms of the practical aspect, I address the content that is contained in the cup, which is the same as expressing the individuals.”
I was particularly interested in how she was inspired to create her art, and by that I mean to bring vessels (Glasses, goblets, cups, etc) to life in playful and colourful ways. Heo’s reply was interesting an interesting idea to think about. She informed me that the idea came from observing a cup she was using as a pencil holder. “Seeing the cup full of pencils, I thought to myself that this object is living as a pencil holder, rather than a cup. A beautiful wine glass could be a fishbowl or a pot with soil. It means that the use could be different depending on what is in that cup. I started to think about ‘who am I, what am I contained in my life’. i also thought about how a vessel, be that a cup or a glass, could be a medium that has the intention/task of containing something and delivering its contents somewhere else. It looked similar to human life – since we are also a medium of delivering our messages to society through a similar relationship.”
Heo mentioned that her biggest Artistic influence is RuPaul. Although Heo shared with me that she is fortunate enough to have many people surrounding her that provide influence and inspiration, she admires RuPaul in particular because “he makes people acknowledge their preciousness, and what makes them special/unique. Even though RuPaul is not an artist who draws or installs, his thoughts and mindset give me a lot of inspiration. In particular, the phrase “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else?” is always in my mind, and has been for over 10 years.”
The best advice Heo has received as an artist is that “everyone is various”. Expanding on this a little, Heo continued by saying that “those various thoughts change their actions, and those actions make society throughout the relationship. Society becomes culture and world. If one’s different thoughts are accepted, we could make the world better. Even though I’m drawing cups or glasses, I’m trying to address these thoughts in my works.”
Out of all Heo’s creations to date, Heo shared with me that her favourite amongst these is ‘Sae-ro-woon’ (Note to reader, this means ‘New’ in English). Talking of this a little, Heo shared with me that she “directly changed the shape of the cup. Having done this, I felt the freedom of using colours while I visualised the abstract emotions. Interestingly, the final outcome was what I planned in the first place – which makes me feel more affection for it.”
The most challenging piece she has created, however, is the piece of work titled ‘Grandmother’ (Pronounced in Korean as Hal-meo-ni), painted on fabric. Sharing with me some of the elements that made the creation so difficult, Heo told me that she “made her skirt into a canvas and used chemicals instead of paints to create the work. Even though her [Heo’s Grandmother] is no longer with us, what she left behind – both tangible and intangible –still exist. Therefore, I didn’t want to put something on the fabric and chose to erase the existing printing on the skirt. There were days when I couldn’t satisfy myself during the process. I had to consider changing the materials or finding new styles, which was tough to go through.”
One of Heo’s paintings that I fell in love with is the picture showing here on the right, which reminds me of the mother and son teacups from Beauty and the Beast, and is a great example of the personality Heo seeks to give her vessels. Heo shared me with that the title of this work is ‘Learning’ (Korean pronunciation: ‘Bae-um’). The colours of the background are from traditional Korean fabric called ‘Saek-dong’, one primarily “used for children or to wish someone luck as they start something new” and incorporates elements of yin and yang. Through this creation, Heo reflects on the current situation in Korea. “We are,” Heo shared, “facing a generational divide that starts from the slang associated with each generation and comes to eventually divide them from each other.” When she first began this painting, Heo shared with me that her first thought was how natural it is to “make ourselves in the centre of understanding when we face the problem of generational gaps, but questioned this and though would it not be better to attempt to sympathise with the other generations. The solution is learning.”
To Heo, this painting has the meaning of “studying the past, and the flow of development, just like what we did as children” and in the hope of achieving “harmonisation of generations”, issued this as an NFT, rather than drawing on the traditional canvas.
Heo appreciates it when the audience felt the same as she does about her artwork, but the best reactions are those where “the viewer and I press the same sympathetic button.” As Heo’s works are metaphorical, she leaves the audience to interpret her art by themselves “but sometimes the audience surprises me by noticing my intention. For instance, at one exhibition in which my works were showcased, a work of mine with the title of ‘Fish Bowl’ was displayed. A middle-aged woman came up to me, crying, and told me that ‘the fish just looks like me’. That encounter left me believing in the power of drawing.”
Heo’s advice to artists just starting out: Everyone is creating the art called ‘life’. You having been walking along the path of an artist since you were born. But if you are trying to be a professional artist who creates art to be presented to the world to the world, then you should trust yourself first. Trust yourself even in the face of someone else’s feedback and admission.