POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Notes

Joung-Mee Do (b.1966) is an establised Korean metal artist proficient in the traditional Korean metal-working techniques of Iybsa (metal inlay) which she spent some years perfecting under the tutelage of the Korean master Kyo Joon Choi. She has been interested in incorporating into metal the qualities of textiles by using inlay and chiselling techniques as well as exploring them in combination with other techniques such as etching. This brooch is a very fine example of her complex metal colouring techniques and Choum Iybsa (fine inlay) work, as well as the way she uses these techniques and forms to express ideas of identity and relationships. It was exhibited in Object Galleries in Sydney in 2001. The theme of the exhibition was 'Heaven and Earth' and was a way of expressing an understanding of her own identity in relation to others. Joung-Mee says in her statement of the exhibition: 'Through this exhibition I would like to begin to gain an understanding of myown identity as an individual in relationship to others. The play of genderrelationships is repeated in the use of the shapes - the square and circle -traditionally in Korea associated with both earth and heaven, male and female.It is like Eum (Yin) and Yang philosophy. Eum and Yang represent the harmony of opposites such as the moon and sun, coldand warm, woman and man. The colour combination of blue and red also symbolize Eum and Yang. Through this philosophy I would like to incorporate symbolic meaning into these simple shapes. The story of this exhibition is Heaven and Earth. It is about the harmony of contradictory elements between a wife and a husband, and about learning to beaccepting of each other, to be helpful and understanding of each other, and ofshared fate. This philosophy could be about the universe, or it could be aboutsomeone's home. So even though these works are made by me as an individual, they are also made by someone who is a woman, a wife, a daughter in law, a daughter, and they are also meant as an intimate object for the person who chooses to cherish them.' The rectangular shape represents a woman or wife and the round shape represents man or husband. At the same time the black colour symbolises woman, and the silver colour symbolises man. For the main body of the brooch, the metal (steel) is chiselled all over, then chiselled again several times in different directions, and oxidised. The silver wire is hammered around the edges across the chiselled grooves. (This is the Choum Iybsa technique of inlaying metal.) For the square in the middle, and for the reverse, Joung-Mee Do has made a stamp with an etching design, and then used the stamp to impress a motif of a traditional textile pattern into the sheet of silver. Around the edge of this, she has fixed a finely coiled silver wire, or spring. For the textile pattern, she made an engraved metal stamp by photocopying the design onto metal sheet, then etching it with ferric sulphide. The stamp was them impressed into the silver plate in the centre of the brooch (and reverse).