Self-Taught Artist – Oh U-Am

This week we are going to explore an international selftaught artist whose work tells the history of modern Korea, from the colonial era, through their civil war to the digital present.

Oh U-Am (1938-) is a married father of four who was orphaned along with his two brothers when they were very young. During the Korean war, U-Am’s mother had been kidnapped and killed for serving food to soldiers on the wrong side of the civil conflict.

After the war, U-Am enlisted in the South Korean Marine Corps and then found work as a resident handyman at a nunnery near Busan. He wasn’t always busy, so he started painting with leftover enamel paint on wood during the three decades he spent working there.

He didn’t start painting in earnest until he was in his sixties when his daughter convinced him to quit his job and devote all his time to creating artwork.

In 2004, gallerist Yum Hejung heard about U-Am’s work and went to visit him with hopes of presenting his work in an exhibition at her gallery, ArtForm Newgate in Seoul. When Hejung found U-Am, he was living in a rundown rental apartment with his wife and his artwork was scattered about.

After months of coaxing, she persuaded him to sell her a painting. She supplied him with oils and canvases and loaned his family money so they could move to a better apartment. In 2006 and 2010 Hejung held solo exhibitions for U-Am at ArtForm Newgate.

The paintings in the shows were somber in mood and subject matter, mainly focusing on Busan’s past. The images had strong horizontal lines, using an exaggerated linear perspective that made them both realistic and fantastical. But a third show, in 2015, presented artwork that was refreshingly cheerful and set in contemporary Busan. What had happened between the shows to bring out such a change in U-Am’s artwork?

In 2010, Korea’s central government informed U-Am his long-dead father had been identified as an anti-colonial activist and would be publicly honored as a patriot. This finding allowed U-Am to revise the script of his life and his family’s place in modern Korea, and it meant he would get a small but steady cash benefit each month. (newyorker.com/ culture/culture-desk/the-selftaught-artist-whose-work-tellsthe-history-of-modern-korea)

In 2022, U-Am’s work was presented at the Busan Biennale at the Museum of Contempo-