“Hwadab” 和答

New Paintings by Seong-Eun Kim

It is rare to read a Western phonetic spelling of an Asian word that consists of two symbols and appears to show a tree, a wall and a house. Since Asian symbolism is not linear to the signs and symbols of American English, the sound of this word is offered as an open door. “Hwadab” is a humanist concept that means a response to a work of either poetry or music. It formally signifies one artist’s creative response to the work of another, showing the grand depth and plurality of Asian visual culture, one that is in fact part of a larger ongoing dialogue with…