Born in 1937, Bang Hai Ja has spent the last sixty years actively producing and exhibiting her artworks in France, Korea, and elsewhere across the globe. By expressing Korean sentiments through various Western techniques and styles that she has mastered, Bang has established and developed a distinct aesthetic language based on her experimental interiorization of thoughts and her abiding interest in natural and artificially generated light. Her paintings are of diverse styles, techniques, and materials and are linked by her passionate desire to explore luminescence, social life, the universe, and the human mind.

After graduating in 1961 from the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University, Bang held her first solo exhibition at the National Library of Korea in Seoul that same year. Using the proceeds of sales from that exhibition, she traveled to Paris, where she absorbed and then transcultured those various modernist styles and techniques to reshape her own artistic vision and practice. In 1963, she met the art historian and critic Pierre Courthion, who became a lifelong supporter and helped her to hold her first solo exhibition in Paris in 1967.

After getting married in France, she and her husband Alexandre Guillemoz moved back to Korea in 1968, living there until 1976. During this time, she rediscovered the artistic possibilities of hanji (Korean traditional paper), which she began using in her collage works in 1971. In addition, she started to explore themes related to the cosmos and the human spirit, as exemplified by Song of the Universe (Le chant de l’univers) (1976).

In 1976, Bang and her family moved back to France, which has been her primary residence ever since. Working in France, she delved even deeper into the themes of life, light, and the universe, launching her Universe series of paintings in the late 1980s, followed by her Life series in the mid-1990s. In 1996, Bang began painting with natural ocher from the province of Roussillon in southern France, believing this mineral extracted from the earth contained the primal organic material and was diffuse with the vitality of nature. While continuing to work with hanji, she also began using the new synthetic material of nonwoven fabric.

In 2000, Bang became an artist-in-residence at  Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art. Since then, she has annually visited Korea and produced works at this institution with exception for the year 2020, due to Covid-19 pandemic.

From the beginning of her career to this day, Bang Hai Ja has continuously explored the dominant themes of light, life, and the universe.  To this end, she is always experimenting and challenging herself with new techniques and materials. For example, she created a new collage technique in order to combine different materials on the pictorial plane, achieved diverse visual and dimensional effects by crumpling or wrinkling hanji paper, and applied paint to both sides of hanji and nonwoven fabric for deeper expressions of space. Through all of these methods, she seeks to approach the essence of light and the universe.

Exploring and expressing these profound themes of celestial space and the organic world, Bang’s works have often been noted for their spiritual qualities. As such, she has produced several notable paintings for Buddhist institutions, including Gaehwasa Temple and Bogaksa Temple in Seoul, and Gilsangsa Temple in Paris. Later in 2018, she won an international competition to produce four stained glass windows for the chapter house of Chartres Cathedral in France (which was installed in 2021). With this honor, Bang Hai Ja’s art of light began to receive even more attention art communities around the world.

Through the course of her sixty-year career, Bang has produced around 1,300 artworks and participated in at least 285 exhibitions on several continents. In addition to her many exhibitions in Korea and France, her works have also been shown in many other European countries (e.g., Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, etc.), as well as in major global cities like Montreal, New York, Shanghai, and Tokyo.

Now in her eighties, Bang Hai Ja continues to actively produce works, moving back and forth between her studios in Paris and Ajoux despite the difficulties of Covid-19 and the readjustment now to a post-pandemic world. To use an old adage:  the amazing journey of reflection and creation that she began more than sixty years ago continues to this day.

1937 / Born in Neung-dong, Goyang-gun (which is now part of Seoul).

1961 / Graduated from the Department of Painting in the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University.

1961 / Went to study abroad in Paris.

1963 / Studied in the Fresco Atelier at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris under professors Albert Le Normand and Jean Aujame (until 1966).

Met art critic Pierre Courthion.

1964 / Studied icon painting at the Centre d’études russes in Meudon (until 1966).

1970 / Studied stained glass (vitrail) at the École nationale supérieure des arts appliqués et des métiers d’art in Paris.

1971 / Began producing collage works with hanji (Korean traditional paper).

1983 / Studied printmaking techniques at Atelier 17 in Paris (founded by Stanley William Hayter).

1988 / Won the Sacred Art Award at the 21^st Prize of the International Contemporary Art of Monte-Carlo, Roccabella, Monaco .

1996 / Began producing works with ocher from the province of Roussillon.

2008 / Won the Proud Kyunggi Student Award at the 100^th anniversary of Kyunggi Girls’ High School.

2008 / Won the Overseas Artist Award at the 2^nd Korea Artist’s Day.

2010 / Awarded the Okgwan Order of Cultural Merit from the Republic of Korea.

2018 / Chosen (through an international competition) to produce stained glass works for four windows in the chapter house of Chartres Cathedral.

Selected Exhibitions

1961 / Bang Hai Ja Solo Exhibition (gallery in National Library of Korea in Seoul)

1961 / Foreign Painters in Paris (Les peintres étrangers a Paris) (Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris)

1967 / Bang Hai Ja (Galerie Houston Brown in Paris)

1970 / Bang Hai Ja (Medieu International Hall in Paris)

1976 / Works of Bang Hai Ja (Gallery Hyundai in Seoul)

1980 / Bang Hai Ja (Galerie Jacques Massol in Paris)

1982 / Works of Bang Hai Ja (Gallery Hyundai in Seoul)

1988 / Bang Hai Ja: Matière-Lumière (Centre Culturel Coréen en France in Paris and Gallery Hyundai in Seoul)

1991 / Bang Hai Ja (Espace Miró at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris)

1994 / Bang Hai Ja (Gallery Hyundai and Gallery Bhak in Seoul)

1996 / Bang Hai Ja (Centre Culturel Coréen en France in Paris and Enrico Navarra Gallery in New York)

2000 / Art Basel 31 (Basel, Switzerland)

2000 / Aspects of Korean Contemporary Art: 1950s and 1960s (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Gwacheon)

2003 / Bang Hai Ja: Breath of Light (Souffle de lumière) (Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière in Paris)

2005 / Bang Hai Ja: Breath of Light (Souffle de lumière) (Gallery Hyundai in Seoul)

2007 / Bang Hai Ja: Recent Works (œuvres récentes) (Galerie Guillaume in Paris)

2007 / Bang Hai Ja: Breath of Light (Souffle de lumière) (Whanki Museum in Seoul and Art World Gallery in Tokyo)

2008 / Selected Papers (Papiers choisis) (Musée Chintreuil in France)

2008 / Korean Abstract Art: 1958–2008 (Seoul Museum of Art)

2009 / Bang Hai Ja: Path of Light, Poetry of Colors, Light of the Heart (Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art in Gwangju)

2011 / 2011 Art Paris (Grand Palais in Paris)

2011 / Bang Hai Ja: Resonance of Light (Résonances de lumière) (Gallery Hyundai and Gallery Dugahun in Seoul)

2012 / Bang Hai Ja: Light of the Heart (Lumière du cœur) (Château de Vogüé in France

2012 / Stained Glass of Bang Hai Ja and Cho Kwangho (Noam Gallery in Seoul)

2013 / Bang Hai Ja: Dance of Light (Danse de lumière) (Centre Culturel Coréen in Brussels)

2015 / Reverberations of White: Emotion of Hanji and Contemporary Art (Museum SAN in Wonju)

2015 / Seoul-Paris-Seoul: Korean Artists in France (Séoul-Paris-Séoul: Artistes coréens en France) (Cernuschi Museum in Paris)

2016 / Bang Hai Ja: Song of Light (Chant de lumière) (Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art in Gwangju)

2016 / Bang Hai Ja: Constellations (Gallery Hyundai in Seoul)

2018 / Korean Artists in Paris 1950–1969 (Leeungno Museum in Daejeon)

2019 / Bang Hai Ja: And Matter Became Light (Et la matière devint lumière) (Cernuschi Museum in Paris)

Immortal Gaze Towards Light

Ki Youngmi

1. Introduction

2. Early Life and Works: 1950s

3. Exploration of Matière: 1960s–mid-1970s

3.1. Practicing Collage, Glaci, and Fresco in Paris (1961–1967)

3.2. Experiments with Hanji in Korea (1968–1976)

4. Diverse Explorations of Light (1980s–1990s)

5. Evoking the Light of the Universe in Site-specific Works (2000s–2010s)

6. Conclusion

1. Introduction

While living and working primarily in France for the past thirty-five years, Bang Hai Ja has remained actively engaged with her homeland of Korea, constructing an oeuvre of extraordinary works that defy the usual categories and tropes associated with Korean contemporary art. In her visual art, Bang creatively combines Western tropes and Korean tradition to explore conceptual notions of light and the universe. Beyond her métier as a visual practitioner, she is also an accomplished poet and essayist who extends her work through calligraphy, qigong, and meditations on the power of image and prose.

In 1956, when Bang Hai Ja entered the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University, the waves of Art Informel and Abstract Expressionism were sweeping through Europe and the United States. Like many Korean artists at the time, Bang enthusiastically tracked these trends through print media and radio broadcasts and began to embrace the new spirit of the avant-garde. At her graduation exhibition from Seoul National University, for example, Bang presented various abstract works with an emphasis on matière (Fr. “matter,” the materiality and texture of the paint), one of the hallmarks of Art Informel. But rather than simply echoing these trends, Bang used an array of innovative materials and techniques to highlight the matière and evoke incorporeal essences of light, space, and life, culminating in a hybrid, Korean take on a Western visual language.

Shortly after graduation, Bang went to study in Paris, familiarizing herself through acculturation in an art capital with iconoclastic Western masterpieces and the latest modernist works produced by artists of Art Informel. She was particularly influenced by Art Informel’s subjective expressions, abstract forms, and emphasis on “matière.” In France, Bang studied fresco and monumental art at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris, while also learning new techniques in printmaking, icon painting, and stained glass craftmanship at various other institutions. These lessons and methods formed the foundation for her future experiments in different media and non-traditional materials.

Recalling Monet, Rembrandt, and Vermeer, Bang Hai Ja is first and foremost a painter preoccupied with light and its transmission and enhancement of a painterly composition. In her work, beyond merely illuminating objects, light allows audiences to see breath, vibrations, the earth, the sky, the cosmos, the universe, and even the essence of luminosity itself. In her formative years, she was mesmerized by the sparkle of sunlight on a stream and enchanted by how light could be a potent and effective though subtle motif in painting. Her fascination for its etherealness deepened in France, where she admired the colors of light at a Vermeer exhibition1 and discovered the glistening particles and energy imbued in the natural ocher from the province of Roussillon. For her, light extends throughout the infinite and the infinitesimal, illuminating the world against darkness and chaos, while also representing the brightness of the human mind, expressed, symbolically and interpreted as joy and bliss.2 Bang’s light is more conceptual and spiritual than material, as reflected in poet Kim Jiha’s descriptions of her art, which include phrases such as “divine white light,” “white dark space,” “white shade of the shining universe” and “beginning of the world.”3

Initially, Bang’s use of matière to express spiritual concepts like light and the universe might seem to reveal the gap between form and meaning, but she is actually more interested in showing their inherent unity. In her works, Bang explores and expresses intangible phenomena like light and the universe with highly physical, textural materials, including hanji (Korean traditional paper), leather, sandpaper, sawdust, cloth, nonwoven fabric, sand, and soil.4 Moreover, she manipulates these workman-like materials with a variety of techniques, including papier collé, papier mâché, collage, and folding or crumpling hanji. Through such processes, her works acquire depth, layers, and texture, transcending the two-dimensional flatness of conventional painting.

Persistently experimenting with materials and media, Bang has spent her career seeking new ways to use heterochronic materials to examine conceptual notions of light. Over time, she also evolved into explorations of space by expanding her two-dimensional paintings into objects and site-specific installations. At large-scale exhibitions in Paris and Korea, she presented works that merge with the specific dimensions of architecture at the site of installed pieces to reformulate the entire space to her purposes. In a testament to her brilliance, in 2018 she won an international competition to become the first contemporary artist ever to produce stained glass windows for the chapter house of Chartres Cathedral.5 Thus, with her highly spiritual works being recognized, Bang can even transform the space and experience of one of the world’s most famous religious sites.

In a career spanning more than sixty years, which continues to this day, Bang has produced more than 1,300 paintings and other creative works. Since there is inadequate time and space to consider all of her artworks in detail, this article examines the defining characteristics and representative works of her career by period.

2. Early Life and Works: 1950s

Born in 1937 in Neung-dong, Goyang-gun, Gyeonggi-do Province (which is now part of Seoul), Bang Hai Ja was the second of seven children. Both of her parents were teachers. She had the misfortune of growing up amidst the violence and turmoil of Korea’s modern history, as she began elementary school in 1945, marking the first year of Korea’s independence from Japan. In the next decade and during the outbreak of Korea’s civil war in 1950 she began middle school. It was in her fourth year at university that the student demonstrations for democracy coincided and were dubbed the April 19 Revolution in 1960. From a young age, her skills and interest in art were nurtured by her parents, along with her maternal grandfather and her maternal cousin Kim Donsik6, both of whom were painters. At Kyunggi Girls High School, Bang studied art with the painter Kim Changeuk, who inspired her to pursue a career in painting, giving up her original plan of studying French.7 Around the same time, Bang also became interested in Korean traditional culture through the influence of the artist and scholar, Yun Kyeonglyeol.8

With the encouragement and support of Kim Changeuk, Bang entered the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University in 1956. While matriculated, she primarily produced representational paintings with certain abstract traits borrowed from the contemporaneous trends of Art Informel and Abstract Expressionism, such as intense brushstrokes, color fields created with a palette knife, and thick matière. These characteristics can be seen in her first oil painting, View of Seoul (Vue sur Séoul), produced in 1958, and also in approximately thirty oil paintings that she introduced at her first solo exhibition in Korea in 1961.

3. Exploration of Matière: 1960s–mid-1970s

3.1. Practicing Collage, Glaci, and Fresco in Paris (1961–1967)

While attending Seoul National University, Bang Hai Ja and her classmates studied and worked closely together, staying current with the popular new trends and the modernist cultural influences of Art Informel and Abstract Expressionism.9 Hoping to enrich her own art with these Western styles and techniques, she went to the heart of the Art Informel movement in Paris. From 1963 to 1966, she attended the Fresco Atelier at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where she studied and practiced various methods of enhancing matière under esteemed instructors such as Jean Aujame and Albert Le Normand.  With Professor Albert Le Normand, for example, Bang learned a fresco technique called “glaci” (which she still enjoys using to this day), wherein a thick layer of sand and lime is applied and then smoothed over with a palette knife.10 Experimenting with matière, she tried various methods of collage, scratched or left marks on the painted surface, or attached other materials to the paint, including leather, sandpaper, and buttons. Also while in Paris, Bang was newly exposed to monumental art that reshapes and repurposes the surrounding architectural space.

Like many students in Paris at the time, Bang lived in extreme poverty, but she never lost her passion for painting.11 During this time, she met the art historian and critic Pierre Courthion (1902–1988), who would later become one of her biggest lifetime supporters. In the preface for her 1967 solo exhibition at Galerie Houston Brown in Paris, Courthion described the expressive power of Bang’s thick paints and use of various textures, such as mixing sand or attaching leather. This description shows that Bang was fully engaged with the practices of Art Informel, explore its system of earthy and workman-like materials thus achieving her primary goal of going to study in Paris and abjuring simple ventriloquism of this movement’s aesthetic style. Through Pierre Courthion, Bang discovered the “artist’s paradise” of Paris in the 1960s, meeting and interacting with painters such as Zao Wou-Ki, Isabelle Rouault, Léon Zack, and Robert Klein.12 In 1964, she started studying the techniques for icon paintings at Centre d’études russes in Meudon. She also visited a number of exhibitions in Paris, including the 1966 exhibition In the Light of Vermeer (Dans la Lumière de Vermeer) at Musée d’Orangerie, which renewed her desire to paint light.

Interestingly, while studying in Paris, Bang gained a deeper exploration of her Korean heritage. Thus, rather than simply reiterating the Western painting techniques that she learned, she instead sought to combine them with Korean tradition, showing her own intentions can be pluralistic. To this end, she would use both Eastern- and Western-style brushes in a single work, or apply oil paints to unconventional materials, like hanji (traditional paper), hemp, or wood panel.

3.2. Experiments with Hanji in Korea (1968–1976)

In December 1967, Bang married Alexandre Guillemoz, and the next month, the newlyweds moved to Korea, where they lived until 1976. During these years, she studied Korean traditional culture, which inspired her to express a more Korean concept of beauty in her works. She continuously produced and showed new works, holding exhibitions at Shinsegae Gallery in Seoul (including her first solo exhibition after her return, held in 1968) and Gallery Hyundai, also located in Seoul. She also gave many lectures, including one on fresco murals at Seoul National University, which she made at the request of sculptor Kim Juyeong. Moreover, in 1969, she painted her own murals for cathedrals in Beolgyo and Jeju. While based in Korea, she still traveled regularly to Paris, where she took classes in stained glass (at École nationale supérieure des arts appliqués et des métiers d’art in 1970) and printmaking (at Atelier Lacourière-Frélaut in 1972).

Perhaps most importantly, it was during this period away from France that Bang began to experiment with the artistic possibilities of hanji, Korean traditional paper, which she often crumpled or folded into unpredictable shapes before applying paint. In 1971, she made her first hanji collage work. Song of Resurrection (1972),13 a work from her solo exhibition at Shinsegae Gallery, is her very first artwork using dakji, a material she got to know from her acquaintance.14 The work is a papier collé that paper is pasted on top of the oil painting on canvas, a collage work that enhances matièr and mixes various materials.

The lure of Europe called her back and she and her husband moved back to Paris in 1976. Here Bang continued to make collage works in which she pasted hanji to oil paintings, such as her series Through the Darkness (Au sortir de l’ombre) (1975–76), which was influenced by the 1975 excavations of ancient Silla tombs.15 Other representative works made with this technique include Song of the Universe (Le chant de l’univers) (1976); Promenade of the Sun (Promenade solaire) (1977); and Searching for the Light (La recherche de la lumière) (1977).16 Many of Bang’s hanji works from this period were circular, although some were rectangular, such as Searching for the Light II (La recherche de la lumière II) (1975).

Signally a new paradigm shift in her work, i by the 1970s Bang used diverse materials and techniques to transcend the limitations of any two-dimensional plane. She was particularly enamored with the textural and three-dimensional effects of hanji, which she had rediscovered after returning to Korea in 1968, but she also explored matière by scraping thick layers of paint and by making collage works that combined oil paints with other materials, such as sawdust, sandpaper, and wood.

4. Diverse Explorations of Light (1980s–1990s)

 Once re-rooted in France, by 1981 she began teaching calligraphy at the School of Mask Performance in Paris, and she continually participated in group exhibitions in both Paris and Seoul. From 1983 to 1987, she resumed her studies of printmaking techniques17 (which she had begun in 1972) at Atelier 17 in Hayter. Based on her research, she presented numerous print works from the 1980s until recent times at various academic institutions and museums.18

In this period, Bang returned to her round works of the 1970s, using the motif of concentric circles to explore the theme of the universe.19 But while most of Bang’s circular works from the 1970s were hanji collages, the ones from the 1980s were usually made with her “crumpling technique,” in which she crumpled a piece of hanji, unfolded it, and applied paint to both the front and back. These works are characterized by the freedom and flexibility of her forms and brushstrokes.

Starting in 1987, Bang used this technique for her Universe series, in which she repeatedly coated both sides of crumpled hanji with various paints for a look of transparency that simultaneously revealed underlying colors.20 In allowing the paint to seep through both sides of the paper, Bang creatively used the transparency, hygroscopicity (i.e., absorption), and silky texture of hanji to express an infinite sense of space and reflect on the nature of light and the universe.

With this method as impetus to create new work, Bang’s Comet Revolution (Comète) and Astral Dance (Dance astrale) make use of vast space and connote the energy of the universe as it coexists with the infinitesimal galaxies, expressive and bearing a resemblance to a shooting star. In fact, astrophysicists like Hubert Reeves and David Ellbaz have likened the works of Bang’s Universe series to photos of actual celestial bodies that they have observed.

In 1989, Bang devised a new papier mâché technique.21 By repeatedly applying layers of water-soaked paper, she was able to achieve a three-dimensional effect that surpassed even her previous matière works of thick paint or papier collé. The resulting works, such as The Body of the Earth (Corps de la terre) (1989), have an extreme thickness reminiscent of relief sculptures. Recalling her process, she said that she personally mixed the paints and other materials with a natural adhesive, and painted repeatedly on both sides of hanji (or later, “nonwoven fabric”) to create subtle nuances and greater harmony in the colors.22

According to art historian Yun Nanjie, the mid- to late 1990s was a time of discovering materials for Bang Hai Ja. The first turning point came in 1996, when Bang began experimenting with natural ocher from the French province of Roussillon. In works that combined earth and paper, she used ocher to create sparkling light effects and color vibrations in her compositions.23 Then in 1997, she discovered “nonwoven fabric,”24 a relatively new synthetic material with coarse fibers, which allowed her to replicate the transparency effect from hanji.

Starting in the late 1990s, Bang used these new materials to delve even deeper into the theme of light. Her natural pigments, including Roussillon ocher, reflected light for an enriched sense of space, while the nonwoven fabric allowed paint to pass through it, evincing the depth and transparency of light.

In an exhibition review from 1998, critic Gilbert Lascault wrote about these new materials: “Although the nonwoven fabric may not have the clear impact of hanji or the vigorous movement seen in Bang’s crumpled hanji works, it reveals the deep beauty of colors and it is easy to preserve because the fibers are finely entangled with each other. Using a brush, the artist applies natural pigments to both the front and back of the fabric. She also sometimes incorporates materials like powdered stone, ocher, and sand.” Thus, this period was defined by Bang’s discovery and exploration of the new materials of Roussillon ocher and nonwoven fabric, which enhanced her expression of light in myriad ways.

5. Evoking the Light of the Universe in Site-specific Works (2000s–2010s)

Bang Hai Ja became even more active in the 2000s, despite the limitations of aging, holding many exhibitions both in Korea and abroad. Since 2000, she has been the artist-in-residence of Youngeun Artist In Residency at the Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art (Gwangju, Gyeonggi-do Province), which has allowed her to travel frequently back to Korea. In fact, for the last twenty years, she has continuously migrated between Paris, her studio in Ajoux (in southern France), and Gwangju, in Korea, actively producing works, holding exhibitions, giving lectures, and pursuing other art-related activities in all three sites.25

In the 2000s, Bang has expanded the scope and depth of her explorations of space through various themes and styles. Since 2000, Bang has continued to use her original ideas and styles with different versions and expanded her spatial boundaries. Among 285 exhibitions archived, it seems that Bang’s expression of media and genre has greatly expanded, interlocking some mediums or actively pursuing more interdisciplinary creative practices, as seen in some of the exhibitions since 2000 examined in the aspects of space, location, and the expansion and displacement of boundaries for individual genres. In 2001, for example, she showed her sculptural work26 in Geneva, Switzerland, and also introduced her cylindrical paintings at the exhibition Into New Light and Life at the Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art. At a 2002 exhibition at Sungkok Art Museum, she showed two large paintings—Light of Life (Lumière de la vie) and Light of the Universe (Lumière de l`univers)—that are now in the collection of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea. In 2003, she held a large exhibition at Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière in Paris. Then in 2005, she held an exhibition at Jangseogak Hall of Jeondeungsa Temple in Ganghwa Island. In 2006, she introduced her ceramic paintings at the Kwangjuyo Ceramic Center. In 2009, she and poet Roselyne Sibille published an illustrated book of poetry (The Door of Silence) and held a joint exhibition at the Toji Cultural Center in Wonju. Then in 2012, Bang Hai Ja began working on stained glass at Glasmalerei Peters Studios in Paderborn, Germany, which led to Stained Glass of Bang Hai Ja and Cho Kwangho, a joint exhibition in Korea with the priest-artist Cho Kwangho. In 2014, she installed a large stained glass Sky-Earth (Ciel-Terre), with a diameter of 1.25 meters, at the Centre Culturel Coréen in Brussels.

Moving beyond galleries and museums, Bang has created an abundance of works in new or unconventional genres known to painters of the past, including ceramics, stained glass, cotton-filled needlework, installations that correspond to the spatial characteristics of a site, and handmade mixed-media works from everyday objects.  An abundance of these kinds of series exist such as  her 2007 exhibition at Whanki Museum included collages of nonwoven fabric, sculptures of colored wood, mobiles of paper and cotton, and her installation of window blinds made from colored glass and hanji, entitled A Tribute to Kim Whanki. By enthusiastically producing eclectic works of such diverse media, Bang practices an “aesthetics of inclusivity.”27

Many of the qualities and characteristics of Bang’s art in this period are exemplified by her 2003 solo exhibition at Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière in Paris (now used as an exhibition hall)28, where she presented a remarkable set of paintings that interacted with the physical, architectonics of the space to generate a new sense of light. Filling the unique dimensions of Chapelle Saint-Louis with her art, she laid paintings on the floor, hung unframed works of nonwoven fabric on the walls, and dangled rolled-up paintings from the ceiling, like cylinders in a distinctive and phallic style. For example, her large work Eye of Light (Œil de lumière) (5.0 × 2.0 m), which was specially created for the space, hung as a cylinder beneath the main dome, creating odd patterns on the floor. Breaking away from traditional exhibitions in a “White Cube,” Bang carefully adapted her works to harmonize with the specific architectural characteristics of the Chapelle Saint-Louis, including the altar, dome, and stained glass. Thus, beyond merely containing the works, the space itself played a fundamental role in creating the meaning and message of the art. To enhance the harmony and resonance of her works, Bang paid close attention to the light from the stained glass windows, which revealed the immaterial spirit of the space as the translucent plates of glass gently illuminated the interior and her bathed her installed work.

In 2018, Bang Hai Ja reached a new pinnacle when her designs of four stained glass windows which were chosen to be produced and installed in the chapter house of Chartres Cathedral (two each to be installed on the north and south side of the building).29 Fabricated at Glasmalerei Peters Studios in Germany, the windows are scheduled to be installed in 2021. Interestingly, the arch-shaped windows combine the two most common shapes of her paintings: rectangular and circular. Extending the expression of light from her paintings, Bang’s stained glass windows visualize religious ascension, with light cascading in vertical beams of light that create a path to illuminated concentric circles. This effect comes to evince a sacred and divine world linking to divinity to the cosmos.

For Bang Hai Ja, winning the competition to create the stained glass for Chartres Cathedral was the culmination of many years of studying and experimenting with various techniques and materials, including fresco, icon painting, stained glass, and printmaking. This journey can be traced back to 1970, when she took her first classes in stained glass making at École des Arts Appliqués in Paris. More recently, she has been working on stained glass at Glasmalerei Peters Studios in Germany since 2012. She also showed stained glass works at her 2007 exhibition at Whanki Museum and at her joint exhibition with Cho Kwangho at Noam Gallery in 2012. In her works of the twenty-first century, Bang Hai Ja intercedes with light, space, and time to reveal the breath of life within various sites.

6. Conclusion

As with every artist, Bang Hai Ja’s works are deeply connected with her own personal history with art making and art history, inter-society movement from Asia to Europe, and prosperity in her own life. For the past sixty years, Bang has steadily expanded the scope of her art, exploring matière and expressions of light in a dazzling menagerie of works ranging from paintings to sculptures, installations, prints, ceramics, stained glass, costumes, and stage sets.

Moreover, her diverse works have moved beyond the walls of galleries and museums to directly engage with the architecture and space of various other sites. These include Buddhist temples, cathedrals in Beolgyo and Jeju,30 Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière, and Chartres Cathedral.31 

Bang, who once aspired to become a poet, has also continued to write and illustrate books throughout her life. She has published her own books of essayistic quality  with Song of the Mind (Pleine et vide) (1986) and Silence of the Mind (2001), as well as several books of poetry by other authors where she served as illustrator, including Great Joy by Charles Juliet (2002), Sky, Mountain, and Moon (2003)32, a collection of Zen poems by Buddhist monks, for which she also did calligraphy, and The Door of Silence by Roselyne Sibille (2009), demonstrating her special interest in painting, poetry and calligraphy. As Bang said ‘all artistic methods like painting, calligraphy, qigong and poetry are ways of exploring the light that surrounds us,’ literature and art is a way for her to show the passion for art towards the light. Moreover, she also contributed an article and a poem for the French translation of Manbulsan: Namsan of Gyeongju and Korean Buddhist Art from the Sixth to Tenth Century (2002) by Yun Kyeonglyeol, the teacher who opened Bang’s eyes to Korean traditional culture and the French translation of Hwagae (2006) by Kim Jiha with her paintings as accompaniment images (e.g. watercolor paintings). Bang’s love for calligraphy and qigong reveals her attachment to Korean tradition and the Eastern view of nature, which is evident in the spirituality of ‘light,’ ‘space,’ and ‘life’ in her works.

Given that Bang Hai Ja has spent her career pursuing light as a motif and trope to express spirituality, spatiality, and universalization of the human spirit, it is little surprise that the titles of her works are filled with references to “light” (“lumière”).  Where one finds titles such as: light of the land, light of the heart, birth of light, breath of light, song of light, field of light, dawn, passage of light, etc. Notably, even her matière paintings with thick layers of paint and emphasized materiality, reminiscent of relief sculptures, are actually quests for immaterial light, as demonstrated by their titles such as Dawn (Aurore) and Birth of Light (Naissance de la lumière). Transcending the mere depiction of light, her works encompass a timeless space inhabited by the movement of light, the wave of light, the breath of light, and the void of light. She uses light and color to explore the essence of life and the allegories and curiosities surrounding the universe, while simultaneously listening to the inner self as a Korean woman and seeking the roots of humanity. For more than sixty years, Bang Hai Ja has cast her “immortal gaze” towards the ubiquitous light that permeates the far reaches of the universe. By continuing to follow that direction with her art, she will surely find eternity beyond time and space.

1937 / Born in Neung-dong, Goyang-gun (which is now part of Seoul).

1961 / Graduated from the Department of Painting in the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University.

1961 / Went to study abroad in Paris.

1963 / Studied in the Fresco Atelier at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris under professors Albert Le Normand and Jean Aujame (until 1966).

Met art critic Pierre Courthion.

1964 / Studied icon painting at the Centre d’études russes in Meudon (until 1966).

1970 / Studied stained glass (vitrail) at the École nationale supérieure des arts appliqués et des métiers d’art in Paris.

1971 / Began producing collage works with hanji (Korean traditional paper).

1983 / Studied printmaking techniques at Atelier 17 in Paris (founded by Stanley William Hayter).

1988 / Won the Sacred Art Award at the 21^st Prize of the International Contemporary Art of Monte-Carlo, Roccabella, Monaco .

1996 / Began producing works with ocher from the province of Roussillon.

2008 / Won the Proud Kyunggi Student Award at the 100^th anniversary of Kyunggi Girls’ High School.

2008 / Won the Overseas Artist Award at the 2^nd Korea Artist’s Day.

2010 / Awarded the Okgwan Order of Cultural Merit from the Republic of Korea.

2018 / Chosen (through an international competition) to produce stained glass works for four windows in the chapter house of Chartres Cathedral.

Selected Exhibitions

1961 / Bang Hai Ja Solo Exhibition (gallery in National Library of Korea in Seoul)

1961 / Foreign Painters in Paris (Les peintres étrangers a Paris) (Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris)

1967 / Bang Hai Ja (Galerie Houston Brown in Paris)

1970 / Bang Hai Ja (Medieu International Hall in Paris)

1976 / Works of Bang Hai Ja (Gallery Hyundai in Seoul)

1980 / Bang Hai Ja (Galerie Jacques Massol in Paris)

1982 / Works of Bang Hai Ja (Gallery Hyundai in Seoul)

1988 / Bang Hai Ja: Matière-Lumière (Centre Culturel Coréen en France in Paris and Gallery Hyundai in Seoul)

1991 / Bang Hai Ja (Espace Miró at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris)

1994 / Bang Hai Ja (Gallery Hyundai and Gallery Bhak in Seoul)

1996 / Bang Hai Ja (Centre Culturel Coréen en France in Paris and Enrico Navarra Gallery in New York)

2000 / Art Basel 31 (Basel, Switzerland)

2000 / Aspects of Korean Contemporary Art: 1950s and 1960s (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Gwacheon)

2003 / Bang Hai Ja: Breath of Light (Souffle de lumière) (Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière in Paris)

2005 / Bang Hai Ja: Breath of Light (Souffle de lumière) (Gallery Hyundai in Seoul)

2007 / Bang Hai Ja: Recent Works (œuvres récentes) (Galerie Guillaume in Paris)

2007 / Bang Hai Ja: Breath of Light (Souffle de lumière) (Whanki Museum in Seoul and Art World Gallery in Tokyo)

2008 / Selected Papers (Papiers choisis) (Musée Chintreuil in France)

2008 / Korean Abstract Art: 1958–2008 (Seoul Museum of Art)

2009 / Bang Hai Ja: Path of Light, Poetry of Colors, Light of the Heart (Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art in Gwangju)

2011 / 2011 Art Paris (Grand Palais in Paris)

2011 / Bang Hai Ja: Resonance of Light (Résonances de lumière) (Gallery Hyundai and Gallery Dugahun in Seoul)

2012 / Bang Hai Ja: Light of the Heart (Lumière du cœur) (Château de Vogüé in France

2012 / Stained Glass of Bang Hai Ja and Cho Kwangho (Noam Gallery in Seoul)

2013 / Bang Hai Ja: Dance of Light (Danse de lumière) (Centre Culturel Coréen in Brussels)

2015 / Reverberations of White: Emotion of Hanji and Contemporary Art (Museum SAN in Wonju)

2015 / Seoul-Paris-Seoul: Korean Artists in France (Séoul-Paris-Séoul: Artistes coréens en France) (Cernuschi Museum in Paris)

2016 / Bang Hai Ja: Song of Light (Chant de lumière) (Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art in Gwangju)

2016 / Bang Hai Ja: Constellations (Gallery Hyundai in Seoul)

2018 / Korean Artists in Paris 1950–1969 (Leeungno Museum in Daejeon)

2019 / Bang Hai Ja: And Matter Became Light (Et la matière devint lumière) (Cernuschi Museum in Paris)