By Honorary Reporter Nicole Bergeaud from France

Photos = Gallery Rolland and Miriam Hartmann

In September last year, when travel was difficult amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Miriam Hartmann, an artist from Provence, France, was invited to show her paintings at a group exhibition of the Korean International Art Fair (KIAF) in Seoul. 

She also hosted a major solo exhibition at Gallery Rolland in the capital. In an Aug. 14 interview, the artist explains her experience in Korea and why she remains under the country's spell.

From left are Ange Lee Ji-won, Rolland Park Shin-young, Miriam Hartmann and Jung Su-jin in front of the exhibition at Gallery Rolland in Seoul. 

Give a brief background about yourself and how you discovered Korea.

I am originally from Germany and moved a lot with my family when I was a kid. I eventually became an art teacher and from my 40s, I started to travel back and forth to France to draw, paint and study other artists. I set up a workshop in Provence, France, and worked there until I decided to move to France. The people I met from Korea were interested in my work. 

In 2018 as an art gallerist, I fell in love with Korean art at first sight at the professional art fair Sm'Art in Aix-en-Provence. The Korean artists were well known, exhibiting worldwide and working with traditional Korean paper. There, I befriended a Korean who invited me to the 2019 KIAF.

From the moment I landed in Korea, it was overwhelming. I had a solo exhibition at Rolland Gallery in Seoul and participated in the Seoul Art Show under my art gallery name. My gallery was one of the few international ones there. I had many opportunities to discover Korean art, its love for materials and colors, precision and obsession for perfection. Korea has a big movement to keep tradition alive. To me, that is what art always was: referring to the past and bringing it back to the present.

Explain what your exhibition 'An Artistic Journey To Provence' is about.
Last year, Gallery Rolland and I planned this exhibition in advance; it had been postponed several times because of the pandemic. We selected 100 paintings, and the exhibition was about my journey as an artist. 

My pigments are different from the stone pigments Korean artists use. I also work with used paper, which was astonishing for Koreans because they are so proud of Hanji's durability. I was influenced by the French artistic movement of "support surface" that appeared after World War II, focusing on the transience of everything in life including art.

Miriam Hartmann paints in the garden.

The two-week exhibition had visitors sit with me at my table. Even if the theme was "An Artistic Journey to Provence," my work is more than just about Provence and is not always figurative.

I also took part in a group exhibition at KIAF, with 15 of my paintings displayed including those featuring flowers. I also brought a big painting representing a Christian calvary (big cross) in a mix of German expressionism and French Fauvism and two big expressionist paintings. KIAF is a unique opportunity for Korean artists to see contemporary art from abroad.

Why do you remain under Korea's spell a year after visiting?

It was one of the best experiences in my life. I felt that any figurative painting I did then could not express my feelings. When in Seoul, I used the pigments I brought from France to create a new palette of colors expressing my emotions about Korea. I want to share my artistic experience at my gallery in Provence with paintings, but more importantly, I want to recreate the atmosphere at Gallery Rolland. 

This scene is from the 2019 Korean International Art Fair in Seoul.

Opened in 2019, Gallery Rolland is run by Rolland Park Shin-young and Ange Lee Ji-won, a couple who since 2012 has experimented with complex art under the theme "Possibility and Culture." 

The couple said, "The moment we saw Miriam's paintings, we felt that they were connected though they weren't drawn at the same time."

enny0611@korea.kr

*This article is written by a Korea.net Honorary Reporter. Our group of Honorary Reporters are from all around the world, and they share with Korea.net their love and passion for all things Korean.