Sei Ryun Chun- Biography

Sei Ryun Chun grew up in an artistic family.
Majoring in fine art at Kunkuk University in 1979, she studied sculpture, and painting. After graduation, she taught at Shinjung middle and high schools. In 1981, she moved to America and studied etching at the New Milford Art Center in New Jersey and New York University in New York. She has also written extensively about art.

She received the AHL Foundation artist's prize in 2000.
She has had 14 Solo exhibitions and participated in the Miami Art Fair and Fine Art Fair San Francisco. She has been curating exhibitions in New York and New Jersey. She is currently incorporating her mastery of the traditional Korean tea ceremony into her exhibitions and presentations.

Sei Ryun Chun- Artist Statement

My artwork is based on the awe-inspiring beauty of nature.
In nature, there are no straight lines.
Starting from small dots, lines, circles and planes,
these shapes were developed and altered to become volumetric curves forming circular beads.

The main materials for my artwork was made from a paper dough soaked in water. The handmade paper mache beads were painted with an Asian black ink (muk) with various dots of acrylic paint weaved by a wire.
Like water taken in by an organism and metamorphosed into significant and functional genes, my artwork reflect this mutation process of a gene. Imagine the gene spreading to the body which influences the mind as well.
Throughout your mind and body, meditation and optimism are being converted into electric thoughts and ideas. I am currently creating my own expressively mutated genes every single moment of my life.





OM                                                                                                                                        2015

The exhibition was focused on the theme of the round sky and rectangular earth, which I was working on for a very long time. The Korean mythologies are expressed in the round circles. I bottled the Eastern cultures and philosophies in my art work, as I wrote down my own stories in my diary. The dream of Utopia, which exists in both the East and West, was shown as a man and a woman sitting in Zen meditation. The sun, the moon, and the countless stars are expressed with the circular tea-dyed leather.

Korean characters, “you and I” are shown in the installation of the rectangular canvases on the wall. I wanted to communicate with my audience, using the holy words of Buddha, coming out from the sky and the earth (ᄋ.ᄆ). Every morning before I start on my artwork, I meditate, and drink tea. I put the tea leaves on the paper and watch the traces of the tea-dye in different forms every day, and I let my artwork be in the flow of time.
The media I used for the artwork in this exhibition were mixed-media, tea-dyed Korean drum leather, which verbalizes the circles of the Eastern culture, and CDs weaved with fishing string to articulate the digital culture and online connections between people in the present.
I expressed the connection between people with threads, and installed the drum leathers to let the sound of om spread throughout the gallery. I created Korean letters with BeoSeon (Korean socks), thread and needles, which symbolize feminism in Korea, and expressed the fragrance of tea and the beauty of humanity with paper flowers.
!After teaching Korean Art and Culture to the Korean American students at the Korean School for twenty eight years, I realized that I learned so much from teaching the students. Art and culture overcome any difference between culture and age.
I made a promise with myself, just like I created artwork for this exhibition, I will keep on creating my life story for my future.



The Fragrance of Tea                                                                                                                 2015
“Sei Ryun Chun’s work reminds me of meditation. It’s like seeing her everyday life in her works. They are like her journals of her daily life. Use of tea leaves and other materials from nature gives a very calm and at the same time strong effects of nature.”

Myron J. Lewis, President ! Board of Directors of Belskie Museum
Whenever I drink a cup of tea, I close my eyes and smell its fragrance. The fragrance makes me calm and gives me a natural energy. It allows me to meditate and concentrate on my art work. My mind becomes very clear and spiritual.
When I drink a tea, I also enjoy the loneliness. Even when
it’s windy...raining...sunny...flowers blooming...I drink a tea and
enjoy all of nature. The most important time is a tea time. As chinese character, tea means grass, people, and tree. Tea includes everything. It is universal. Tea is my philosophy.




Scent of Nostalgia                                                                                                                 2010

For my artwork, I worked with a mixture of leather, paint, sand, shells and green tea.
Similar to when I worked on the ChoSun Women Series where I used the style of photo-etching on leather, I felt that the maternal love from the women was as soft as the buttery leather, where the unique personalities and perspectives of these women were shown.
After brewing some tea, I use the tea leaves and pour them on to paper, fabric and leather. I work with the traces of the tea leaves which display the flow of time, and this becomes my art. I incorporated the stars from the universe in my artwork, because I drink tea every day which cleanses my soul and I meditate to become one with nature.


The circle has no end and no beginning. The circle in essence keeps rotating endlessly and is eternal. Back in the day paper was only used as a canvas, ever since the beginning of human history up until the digital era of today. However, nowadays leather is used as well as paper as canvases. Countless dots represent time and tangled lines like a ball of thread complete a surface.
The heart of the microcosm within our body, which cannot even be touched or seen, was painted with abstract colors. Those billions of stars in the great universe were expressed by the installation on the wall as if we were able travel between them by a space shuttle.

Sei Ryun Chun- Resume

Education
 
1990         Studied at New York University - Print Making Graduate Courses
1986         Art Center of Northern New Jersey
1975         BFA  Kun-Kook University , Art & Design
 

Teaching Experiences

1982- Present  Hoonmin Korean School of Art and Culture


Solo Exhibitions

2024  Octagon, Bona Gallery, Daegu, Korea 
2022  Without Beginning Without End, Gamrosa, AZ
2021  CAMINO, Gala Art Center, NY
2021  Catskills Story (Without Beginning Without End), KCC Gallery, NJ
2020  Catskills Story, Davin Fine Art Gallery, NY
2019  OMNE, MK Gallery, VA, Washington D.C.
2018  Ubiquitous, City of Brockton Public Library, MA
2018  Rounded, Islip Art Museum, NY
2017  Art is Filling, Berlin, Germany
2017  Eternal, Bank of Hope, New York, NY
2017 Ubiquitous, Seward Park Library, New York, NY
2016  Ubiquitous, Suwon Art Center, Seoul, Korea
2016  Mutation, Piermont Public Library Gallery, NY
2015  Ubiquitous, Bergen Performing Art Center, NJ
2014  Milky Way, Sesimje Gallery, Jeju, Korea
2013  Fragrance of Tea, Gallery of Korean Cultural Center, Washington DC
2012  Meditation, Oms Art Gallery, Fort Lee, NJ
2011  OM, Long Island University Hutchins Gallery, NY
2010  The Sylvia Wald and Po Kim Gallery, NY
2010  Hommage Soo Keun, Chelsea West Gallery, New York, NY 
2003  Bank Asiana Gallery Oms Public Art, NY
2001  Beautiful Organization Exhibition, Seoul, Korea

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2 Person Show

2017  Destiny, Wuppertal, Germany
 

 4 Person Show

2012  4 person show, Chun Gallery, NY
2011  JPEG04, Da Gallery, New York, NY
2010  The Sylvia Wald and Pho Kim Gallery, 4 person Exhibition, NY


Group Exhibitions

2024  69th Exhibition of Creative Art Association, Seoul Art Center Korean 
2022  Open Spring Festival & Zen Art Show, Baklimsa Catskill Zendo, NY
2019  NY 2 Seoul, La:ppland, Seoul, Korea
2018  Parthibition, Space Ciel Gallery, Pompton Lakes, NJ
2017  Celebrating Small, Darvin Fine Art Gallery, Piermont, NY
2017  Envisioning Habitats, Flushing, Queens, NY
2017 Dynamic Dimensions, Belskie Museum of Art and Science, Closter, NJ
2014  Double Mirror, American University Museum, Washington DC
2014  59th Exhibition of ChangJark Fine Association, Sejong Center Galery, Seoul, Korea
2014  BBCN Bank, Flushing, NY
2014  Shades of Time, The Archive of Korean American Artists, Queens Museum, NY
2014  Shades of Time, Cultural Service Gallery Korea, NY
2014  Sobab Gallery 3 person show, Seoul, Korea
2013  Gallery of Korean Cultural Center, NY  (4 artists)
2012  Maum Gallery, New York, NY
2011  White Lab Gallery, Milano, Italy
2011  Gallery OMS, SF Art Fair, SF
2010  OMS Gallery Miami Art Fair
2010  KCC Gallery, NJ
2000  Korean Art Group Exhibition in Culture Center, Paris 
 
 
Grants and Awards

2014  30 Years Certificate of Teaching in Korean School
2010  AHL Foundation Community Award
2001  Holy Name Best Artist Award, Belskie Museum Closter, NJ
1998  Art Center New Milford Mixed Media Award
1990  Printmaking Award in NJ Women's Art Association


Lectures

2014  Seoul Korea Chungbuk University Art and Culture
2013  National American Korea School, Art and Culture Seminar


Art in Public Place

Gayeon, Fort Lee, NJ 
Bank of Hope, Palisades Park, NJ


Private Collection (excluded)


Review

2016  TV Channel KBN, About Artist Sei Ryun Chun
2016  TV Channel TKC, Artist Sei Ryun Chun Studio Interview
2016  Seoul Korea Art and Culture Newspaper
2015  Art Forum Magazine, Seoul Korea
2014  Seoul Korea Gyeonggi Daily News
2010  New York Korean Times, Artist Sei Ryun Chun
2008  New York Central Daily News, New York Artist Sei Ryun Chun


Performance  (Korean Traditional Tea Performance)

2022  Tea Ceremony at Korea in Philly, Philadelphia, PA
2019  OMNE, MK Gallery, VA, Washinton D.C.
2018  Korean Thanksgiving Festival in U.S. Botanic Garden, D.C. 
2018  Art Space |Aa at Jeju, Korea
2018  Tea Ceremony in Islip Art Museum, NY
2017  Tea Ceremony in Queens Library; Bayside, Woodside, Flushing, East Flushing
2017  Wuppertal, Germany, Destiny Tea Ceremony
2017  Berlin, Germany, Art if Filling Tea Ceremony
2016  Washington DC Smithsonian Tea Ceremony
2015  FIT Korea Traditional Tea Ceremony
2000  NYU, Cornell, Boston, and Yale Traditional Tea Ceremony
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Essay - Korean Times

Life and Art Columnist

Museum
2016  Suwon Museum of Art Center