Ri Jongok

From the 3^rd-generation Zainichi North Korean, female, Heisei generation to the daughter of artist Ri Yong-hoon, there are many ways to describe Ri Jong Ok, born in 1991. Yet, Ri asks that people “look at her work first,” saying, “I find a certain meaning in the fact that my works can be seen across the ocean.”

At this year’s Kiaf, Ri will present five new works from her Blueprint series. The theme focus on the current situation in East Asia, the relationship between Japan, South Korea, and North Korea, and their military. Her message is about how individuals can feel free within the boundaries of nations, societies, and communities. The ancestry of the Korean diaspora in Japan, known as Zainichi, can be traced up to World War II. For a long time, they were not recognized as citizens of any country.

“Because of this background, the Zainichi have continued to strive to create a quasi-state-like community, and I naturally became interested in the artificial concepts of nation and nationality. I have continued to make work that explores these structures that surround us by incorporating symbolic motifs, metafictional structures of historical events, and fictional worldviews.”

Ri’s past works have cited iconography from classical paintings, such as the Virgin Mary and Eve. Later, symbols of nations and peoples, such as Mount Paektu and Mount Fuji, the Fukushima Sea, protective hazmat clothing, suits, and jeogori (traditional Korean jacket), appeared frequently. A common theme among her entries for this year is the sky.

“Flying object” is a term used in the media to refer to an unidentified object launched from another country. Canal is a visual representation of North Korea’s Taepodong-3 missile, while Bone is based on a joint military exercise between the United States and South Korea; Moby Dick depicts the departure ceremony of the Japanese submarine Hakugei; White Magnolia captures a scene from Park Wan-suh’s novel. “In recent years, as North Korea’s projectile launches became more frequent, the number of hateful remarks about Koreans on the Internet increased, affecting North Koreans in Japan,” says Ri. “These reports and warnings which stem from old fabrications, created this atmosphere of tension with no end in sight, and I painted as a reflexive response to it.”

What form does the sky over our head take? North Korea’s missile launches in response to U.S.-South Korean military exercises, the issuance of J-Alert, hatred of the weak, and Japan’s choice to become a military power. Missiles, radio waves, sirens, radar, drones, satellites, nuclear warheads, or whatever you want to call them, are in orbit over our heads. Is it impossible to be free of that structure up in the sky? Ri painted and painted as if dissecting this vague anxiety.

“I was ‘ethnically educated’ from childhood through college. I didn’t go to art school, and I’ve never had an art education in Japan. I had to learn how to make art on my own. No matter what I do, I’m constantly questioning myself, whether my work is innovative, whether it’s beautiful, whether I’ve strayed too far from the concept, and so on.”

Ri Jongok, Olympia 2020, ink, acrylic, digital print, paper on panel, 220x360cm, 2019