As trade routes began to link distant civilizations along the silk road, their paths of commerce were paved in peril. Only caravans of enterprising merchants, soldiers, and bandits were brave enough to plunge into this vast ocean of deserts and grasslands and emerge on the shores of cities with names as enchanting and exotic-sounding as ancient spells. Behold! Samarkand, Kashgar, Zanskar, whose vowel-rich titles rise and fall alongside sharp syllables like the spires of their towers, inseparable from the wealth of the trade routes they once occupied between Europe and Asia. Yet, it wasn’t only merchants and conquering armies who found providence within the walls of these fortified cities-but also ideas, philosophies, and art.
Korean-born painter Chae Tongyull understands this history well. He has spent his whole life embodying it, tracing the footsteps of nomadic people throughout Asia, Europe, and the Middle East while also carving out new trails in some of the most remote and dangerous areas of the world. Yet, unlike the ancient marauders and merchants of old, Chae’s pursuit is not for fortune or gold, it’s for artistic inspiration. At each new juncture on his voyage - a thatched hut deep in the Yucatan jungle, a run-down mezzanine in the most dangerous neighborhood of 1980s New York, a shelter at the highest peaks of the windy Himalayas-he maintains an eye not for detail, but for humanity, attempting not just to observe, but to become. However, if one wishes to fully scale the breadth of humanity’s most beautiful peaks, one is also duty-bound to descend into the shadows of her deepest, and darkest, valleys.
Trial by Fire
Chae was born in the midst of the Korean War in 1950, a descendant of political nobility dating back over 3-6 generations. As such, great things were expected of him from a young age, and by 17, he volunteered for the war in Vietnam with ambitions to eventually become an ambassador. Gifted with languages, Chae’s interpretation abilities put him in the heart of the conflict as part of an elite special forces unit. It was here that Chae's boyhood notion of romance and glory would become shattered, forcing him to confront the dark duality, and grim reality, of what it means to be a man. “I saw civilians getting killed, I saw everything” he says. “And at the same time you are learning that you, yourself, are also capable of doing bad. We each have the ability to do really great things, and really horrible things, but you have everything in yourself at once, you are capable of both. I learned that early on.” This soldier’s march through the valley of death would awaken within Chae the artist he was destined to become, and forge his brushstrokes with the visceral, nearly primal, energy which he would harness later in his life, most noticeably in his “Slaughter” series of the 1970s.
In Search of New Lands
Following the war, Chae moved to the United States as a cultural exchange student, where he was initially drawn to literature. The rambling, chaotic prose of James Joyce and the “Imagist” poetry of Ezra Pound comforted him, and their self-doubts on the road to immortality gave Chae inspiration for his own journey. However, his disdain for the rigid structure of the classroom eventually led him to drop out and give into his nomadic nature. He would spend the next few years bouncing from city to city across America, working odd-job as a bartender in New York, a bouncer in Miami, and even a karate instructor, before eventually settling in New Orleans. It was here, in an atmosphere humid with Jazz and sticky with syncopated rhythms, that Chae’s bohemian heart found its artistic beat. He met his wife and fellow artist, LD Lawrence, and even started an art movement dubbed “The Idists.” In equal measure, New Orleans became a new battleground and a fresh schoolyard for the young artist, a place where he could discover his voice and carve out his name in history. But first, he needed to choose a new weapon, one sharp enough to break through his own emotional armor- the paintbrush.
Sharpening His Craft
As a painter, Chae holds his brush like a sword and positively attacks his canvas with an attitude akin to that of a raving mongol, his disregard for the rigid structures of formal training allowing him to overcome the initial hurdles of schooling to wail and weep his emotions on canvas. In a clash of color unrefined and crude, yet deeply profound and moving, Chae’s art is soaked with symbolism in the tradition of “Imagist” master Ezra Pound, whose own verses are derived from the Eastern sensibilities of Chinese and Japanese poetry. This is a literary and aesthetic form Chae is deeply familiar with, and he often cites the eccentric eighteenth-century Chinese artist Pa-Ta-San-Jen as an early inspiration for his work. Additionally, just as Ezra Pound chose to “compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not the sequence of the metronome,” Chae’s body of work serves as a soundtrack of sorts to his own life’s various adventures and inspirations.
From Goya to Picasso, Chae draws upon the humanistic sensibilities of European fine art while maintaining the same vigorous mentality of an Asiatic-steppe warrior. With each new place he visits, each new book he reads, and each new idea he encounters, disparate symbols are introduced, transformed, and incorporated into his work until a sweeping score begins to emerge, faint at first, but bolder as time goes on. This is intentional on his part. “Many of the early Renaissance paintings come from Persian paintings, which in turn were influenced by the Mongols. They came and ruled over the Arabic countries, bringing all these Chinese painters and their distinct styles. So in a way, my works travel down from the Himalayas and into the tradition of the Renaissance. Although they may look like western paintings, they are actually steeped in the silk road painting tradition.” Just as Chae continuously travelled and gained new experiences, these recurring motifs would interweave and refine themselves into a recognizable melody, one that would eventually culminate in a razor-fine edge sharp enough to take a slice out of New York City’s booming art market.
Quest for Glory
Following New Orleans, Chae and his wife criss-crossed North America in their van through much of the 1970s, their acute sense of freedom leading them from the steamy jungles of Yucatan to the sunny beaches of Baja and back again. Since they never kept a permanent residence, tracing their route is nearly impossible except through the annotations and stylistic tendencies of Chae’s work, whose written records of dates and locations on the back of canvas lend a treasure-map-like quality to tracking the progress of the artist. As time went on, their van became burdened with the fruits of their artistic labor, and like a caravan of surplus goods, they began to look for a profitable outpost to sell their wares. After the owner of a bookstore in Mexico City suggested the East Village, they knew what they had to do. Chae recounts this encounter fondly. “My wife and I looked at each other and said, ‘Jesus christ, all the way down in Mexico City they know about the East Village! We better go check it out.” So they packed their van full of rolled up canvasses and embarked on the road to New York City, nearly 2,600 miles away. It was there, amidst the clamoring masses and rising towers, that Chae found his destiny as an artist.
Like any cosmopolitan port, New York in the 1980s lay at the cross-roads of civilization. And although the glittering skyscrapers signified immeasurable wealth to any wayward traveller, the cracked side-walks and graffiti-littered streets below betrayed the grim reality of life lived within its shadows. It was a veritable war zone, a place populated by drug-pushers, prowled by crooks, and forcibly occupied by young bohemian artists looking for their big break. Chae had found his home. “At that time, I moved into the most dangerous area in New York. It was a Jewish synagogue surrounded by so many burnt out buildings.” Chae says. But he. was a war-veteran, and accustomed to living in hostile environments. He claims, “Still though, even though the windows were all broken and the winter was so cold, I had the mezzanine all to myself. It was a good place to start painting after Mexico.”
During this time, Chae thrived as an artist. He shared his flat with graffiti sensation Futura, rubbed elbows with Andy Warhol days before his death, exchanged words with Jean-Michel Basquiat once or twice at punk-rock concerts, and exhibited his work alongside urban artists Crash and Daze- whom he still communicates with today, nearly 40 years later. Yet, despite these personal influences, his work was largely separate from the greater youth movement taking place within the East Village. Instead of re-appropriating pop imagery or making grandiose critiques about contemporary consumer culture like that of his peers, he began drawing inspiration from an entirely different culture, the middle ages.
Chae’s breakout exhibition in 1986, “Medieval Tales,” was a love letter to the lore of centuries past and a test of his artistic ability to convey his passionate affair with literature on canvas. With brash brushstrokes, complex compositions, and subjects referencing everything from Arthurian legend to the writings of magical realists Calvino and Burgess, Chae had emerged on the scene as a direct contender against the “edgy” styles that had become trendy in the East Village of the 1980s. Additionally, as a Korean settler in United States who drew inspiration from Latin American and European Literature, his works also boasted a universal, even timeless appeal that stoked the imagination of a viewer. Although separated by time and distance, Chae succeeded in bringing the fantasy of these far-away places to the forefront of the imagination, almost within reach, but not quite. Through the use of distortion and exaggeration, Chae leaves the mystery of these magical worlds intact, urging his audience to dive a little deeper, and travel a little farther, to find their own pleasure in the journey of artistic exploration.
A Hero’s Homecoming, and Farewell
Following the success of “Medieval Tales,” Chae decided to finally return home to Korea after nearly 15 years, just five years shy of Odysseus’ own journey through the Aegean. And just like a decorated hero, this homecoming was to be heralded by gilded ceremony. Chae’s works were quickly bought up by museums, collectors, and corporations across Korea, giving him enough money and time to take on more challenging adventures, such as raising his infant daughter, Isolde. Yet, it wasn’t long before he was back on the road again. This time though, at nearly 50 years old, he was ready to embark on his lifelong dream to hike through the Himalayas and down the silk road, a journey that has always held a profound influence on his imagination and artistic style.
Through his “Himalaya,” “Silk Road,” and complementary “Interior Still Life” series over the past 20 years, Chae’s artistic style begins to noticeably soften, even as his resolve to travel to greater heights, both physically and artistically, begins to harden. That is to say, his skills haven’t decreased or slowed down with age, they’ve only become more focused as he’s matured. Whether its in a damp cave below a Hindu temple or at heights of over 4000 meters high in the Himalayas, at each new destination along the silk road, Urumqi, Zanskar, Kanchunjunga, Chae chooses to stay for two to three months at a time to live among the locals, and paint. “My wife jokes that I’m an extreme alpine air painter.” He laughs. “But I do it seriously to try and capture real life, and feel how those people live. I want to become the same as them, without me being an outsider.”
Communion with Nature
Being exposed to the harsh elements of his environments caused Chae to reevaluate his relationship with the natural world, and the art world. “A lot of people think of nature as nice and pleasant, especially the Chinese traditional way of thinking, but nature is very rough.” Chae claims. “Nature is heartless. It doesn’t care what we think.” Even so, the various landscapes within his “Himalaya” and “Silk Road” series often read like portrait pieces of nature itself, the lines and contours of the earth treated with the same fauvist fervor of a French female nude, sensuous and warm, but ultimately out of reach. “In western paintings, you generally have a nude, a landscape, a still life, and maybe a portraiture.” Chae claims. “And I try to tap into all those things. But nature has nothing to do with you. So how do you control and harmonize these elements? I try to paint this relationship.” In this regard, the accented peaks and valleys we observe are actually a reflection of our own rosy-eyed romanticism, a notion further enhanced by the still-life quality of the flowers found in the corner of his frames, perhaps meant to evoke favor with the divine femininity of nature herself.
Yet, ironically, our view is often blocked by the near spot-light intensity of Chae’s female subjects, who emerge, stark-white and statue-like, as main characters out-of-place within the colorful settings of the plays they are cast into. Modeled off a sculpture of the Hindu goddess Parvati Chae encountered while exploring Delhi, these icons are naked and exposed to the elements, yet unencumbered by their circumstances, uncaring and indifferent to the male gaze. In fact, Chae claims, “The male gaze is not there at all, maybe not even invited.” For centuries, the western tradition of female nudes and landscapes were treated as subjects of adoration to be conquered by artists and consumed by critics, but by literally turning their backs on us to enjoy the natural scenery on their own terms, Chae’s nude portraits simultaneously subvert the male gaze while reinforcing the indifference of mother nature toward humanity, whose will cannot be won over with simple romantic gesturing or religious offerings. In this regard, perhaps the flowers in the corner of his frames can be viewed more as tributes to her power in the Eastern sense rather than gifts to win her heart in the Western tradition.
Opening New Routes
Throughout his later travels, Chae succeeded in broadening the beatnik, jazz-like brushstrokes of his early years toward something approaching an elegant fugue. As these new, softer elements began to emerge in his work - flowers, nudes, landscapes- they take root and blossom within the overarching coda of his career. Incorporating these elements was an intentional pivoting point in Chae’s approach that allowed him to frame the focus of his art within the basic pillars of western composition while acknowledging the lineage of its evolution through an Eastern, traditional sense. “I really grew up in between two cultures.” Chae says. “Reading Chinese literature when I was young, and then living in America, and now I’m trying to reconnect with the East again.”
Now, at 70 years old, Chae is well-versed, well-travelled, and far from weary. He is CEO of his own art agency, and like any experienced merchant, uses the countless points of contacts he has accumulated across the globe to organize exhibitions for old friends in new ports throughout Asia. For the 17 year boy who once harbored ambitions of becoming an ambassador, Chae seems to have succeeded. “Now in many ways, all these artists from New York, their dealers, their galleries, regard me as their ambassador to Asia. And I take it seriously.” Likewise, as a veteran in more ways than one, Chae is confident that his latest campaigns in China will be successful in not only opening up new markets, but exposing a wider audience to fresh artistic ideas. “I want to put myself in the middle, as a sort of conduit. That’s what the silk road was all about. From Asia all the way to Rome and back, and witnessing how all the art had influenced and changed the globe.
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