(1952- )
재독작가 송현숙(b. 1952, 전라남도 담양)은 한국의 토속적 이미지를 화면에 담는다. 전통 가옥의 귀퉁이, 장독대 등이 소재가 된다. 한국의 귀얄 붓으로 단숨에 그은 정갈한 획이 특징이다. 서예를 닮은 붓질이다. 1972년 독일에 보조 간호사로 파견된 후 오랜 세월 타향에서의 삶을 살았다. 작업의 소재와 표현에서 고향에 대한 애상이 눈에 띄게 묻어난다. 삼베, 명주와 같은 한국 천의 재질을 탁월하게 표현하기 위하여 템페라를 고수한다.
Song Hyun-Sook was born in Jeollanamdo, Korea and spent her childhood on the mountain village of Mu-Worli in the province of Damyang. Song had been dispatched to Germany in 1970s to serve as a nurse. After the four-year service, she entered College of Fine Arts in Hamburg and has actively started her new career as an artist. Song conveys the emotion of ‘longing’ through her paintings. The hometown, unfamiliarity in the foreign land, sorrow and conflict, sociality and the afterimage of zeitgeist are filled within the canvas.
Her subject matters are rooted in the traditional past of her native Korea and many are of vernacular nature: a ceramic jug, the corner of a house, rustic raw silk. She harmonizes antithetical elements by using European tempera and canvas and creating powerful brushstrokes with a Korean gwiyal brush. The artist’s brushstroke contains the strong energy of calligraphic skill in the tranquility. Her gestures are entirely conveyed in the brushstrokes. In contrast to the energetic brushstrokes, the images are settled down in serenity. And it releases the Korean natural beauty in infinite depth. In addition to her usual paintings, she has created a work that touches on the moment of personal significance, for her solo exhibition at the Hakgojae gallery in 2014. The artist was inspired by the Sewol-ferry disaster in 2014, in which 304 high school students and passengers perished, for Brushstrokes-Diagram. The deep black background expresses the spirits of the victims and disappearing Sewol-ferry in the dark desolation. This painting has been acquired by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea. Song’s works are a part of numerous collections including; Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul; Kunstmuseum Dusseldorf, Germany; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan; and many more.