Painted when Korean artist Chun Kyung-ja (천경자) was in her early fifties yet recalling herself at twenty-two, this work has become one of the most discussed self-portraits in modern Korean art. Curators and art historians describe it as a “page” from the artist’s lifelong legend as a return to the vulnerable age marked by family loss, divorce, and artistic awakening. The young woman artist with long, olive-brown hair fills the vertical frame, her body cropped at the chest against a dense, midnight-blue background. Her face is rendered in cool gray-violet tones with her skin smooth and masklike above a very long, upright neck. Luminous yellow irises ring stark white pupils, giving her gaze an unblinking, otherworldly intensity that seems to look beyond us. Four slender snakes, patterned in greens, golds, and orange, coil like a crown across her forehead, their small heads pointing in different directions. Her lips are a flat, warm orange, closed and unreadable. A single pale pink rosebud rests at the center of her light blue dress, its stem trailing downward. On the left, a vertical column of Korean characters marks the artist’s signature, anchoring this dreamlike, frontal portrait in Chun’s own hand. The crowned snakes echo the many serpents that populate Chun’s oeuvre, a motif she linked to ancient Egyptian cobra emblems as well as to her own psychic guardian as both threat and protector. Here, the snakes form a halo around a figure who kind of reads as witch, martyr, and survivor all at once, while the drooping rose hints at bruised desire and mortality. Some have noted that this image may merge Chun’s younger self with the memory of a beloved sister who died at 22, turning the portrait into a shared, transgenerational self. In the collection of the Seoul Museum of Art, this portrait stands as a key statement of Chun’s “sad legend” to transform the Korean emotional state of han (한) accumulated sorrow and resistance into an icon of fierce, enduring womanhood.

내 슬픈 전설의 22페이지 (Page 22 in My Sorrowful Legend) by 천경자 / Chun Kyung-ja (South Korean) - Pigment on mulberry paper / 1977 - Seoul Museum of Art, South Korea #WomenInArt #ChunKyungja #천경자 #Kyungja #KoreanArt #artText #art #AsianArt #KoreanArtist #AsianArt #서울시립미술관 #SeoulMuseumOfArt #SeMA #SelfPortrait

Mystical self-portrait "Tango Flowing at Dusk" or simply “Tango at Dusk” (1978) shows an expression of female desire through a 1/4 profile of beautiful woman in a purple top with blue flower petals poking out from the top while she smokes a long pink cigarette between bright red lips with a green hair tie keeping her brown hair up. It’s a portrait of supreme, potent elegance with a touch of kitsch giving way to deep mysteries as the smoke appears as a snake or wispy leaves of a flower. Meanwhile, her hair seems to be spelling out an unknown message. Through her original reinterpretations of subject matter like “Resentment,” “Flowers,” and “Woman,” Chun Kyungja (1924-2015) laid the groundwork for what has become today’s vibrant world of Korean color painting. Born Chun Okja in Goheung, Jeollanam-do (Southern province in Korea), the artist began using the name Chun Kyungja in 1941 as she pursued her studies at Tokyo Women’s Art School (now Joshibi University of Art and Design). Chun Kyung-Ja has often been described by critics as an artist who explored deep human emotions. She is also known by the nickname of “the magician of colors” for her bold and intense color use.

“Tango Flowing at Dusk” self-portrait by Chun Kyungja 천경자 (Korean) - Color and ink on paper / 1978 - Gallery Hyundai (Seoul, South Korea) #womeninart #womanartist #selfportrait #fineart #koreanartist #chunkyungja #천경자 #womensart #tango #smoking #womanart #artwork #womenartists #koreanart #art