[imText1]A decade after escaping from North Korea, 57-year-old painter Kang Jin Myung has finally been able to bask in the glow of his first-ever private exhibition in Insa-dong, Seoul. This despite the fact that Kang has been diagnosed with liver cancer and had to undergo treatment while creating works for the showing.
“I don’t fear death,” insists Kang, who entered South Korea in 2008. “I want to pour my remaining passion into painting and I hope that, through my works, the reality of North Korea will be spread more widely to the world.”
The theme of the exhibition, “Looking for Freedom I Dreamed About,” speaks to how fervently someone like Kang can aspire to escape that North Korean reality. “I came here [via China] from a place just two hours away by car, but it took me ten years. During that time, I witnessed countless people die. When I look back, it was such a painful and tough time.”
“I came from a world where human rights have been deprived,” Kang continues. “I had missed freedom so much and the way for freedom was terribly bumpy.”
[imText2]After graduating from an art college in Pyongyang, Kang joined the Painter Group of the Ministry of the People’s Armed Forces, where he was tasked with creating portraits of leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. Although painting such portraits is the greatest honor that can be bestowed on a North Korean painter, it can sometimes carry a dastardly price.
“The models we used were just their pictures,” Kang explains. “While concentrating on painting, it is not unusual to smear paints on the photos, put the photos on the floor or even step on them. But when that happened, we were then officially accused by others.”
Two hours away from his former life, Kang now offers up reflections of a deeply personal ordeal. The oil painting “Mountainous Deity” for example conveys the chilling feeling of a defection attempt through the eyes of a glaring tiger, which he encountered at Mt. Baekdu while trying to escape from North Korea. Meanwhile, “Freedom of Waves” is awash with an individual’s deep desire for free will.
“When I started painting in 1970s, North Korea’s economic instability was not so serious,” Kang recalls. “It was not so difficult to get by and payment was quite good. But the problem was there was no freedom. It is a real torment for an artist when there is no freedom at all to create works.”
Kang, who was born in Musan, North Hamkyung Province and escaped from North Korea in 1999, cites the infamous case of a movie director Shin Sang Ok as a reminder of how precious freedom can be. Shin and his wife, actress Choi Eun Hee, were kidnapped by North Korea in 1978 and defected from the North in 1986. During those eight years, Shin Sang Ok directed seven historical movies and produced 13 more.
“Kim Jong Il built the Shin Film Studio for him and spared no expense in order to help him make movies,” Kang observes. “Nevertheless, Shin and his wife chose to flee from the North. Why did they do it? It was fundamentally because there was no freedom.”
