▲ Bae Jin-gyeong

One way to know about a certain time in the history of a nation is to look at the remains and jewelry. Through this, you can have a glimpse how people lived and what kind of objects they used in the Three Kingdom era for example. But there is other interesting point of view on the Three Kingdom era with actually ‘five’ instead of three. Jeweist Bae Jin-gyeong is the one who widens the view on it and is expressing their beauty through her artistic and historic jewelry works. 

Oguksidae
Artist Bae Jin-gyeong is famous for ‘Bae Jin Gyeong Oguksidae’. Oguksidae means the era of Goguryeo, Baekje, Silla, Gaya and Tamra. Bae worked for a shipping building company for 7 years after high school. But her interest in Korean painting and illustration was great and she quit the job to study animation at a university. 

“I also enjoyed reading books especially about history so I tried to combine the art with history which eventually developed into ‘Bae Jin Gyeong Oguksidae” says Bae. 

She started making jewelry from 2010 and launched Bae Jin Gyeong Oguksidae from 2011 in earnest. “I brought up stories of the 5 kingdoms first and combined them with the accessories I made.” 

Unique Art + Education
Bae ran a shop in Insa-dong and learned a lot from failure for the next 5 years. Gathering her knowledge and experience, Bae finally succeeded reproduction of the historical relics into her unique style added by a touch of modernism. She designed all the accessories she made and successfully secured corners at the Gongju National Museum, Seoul Baekje Museum and the cultural product stores of various museums nationwide. 

Among her accessories, she pays a greater effort in perfecting ‘gokok’. Gokok (jewelry) was found at a tomb of Silla and it symbolizes ‘pre-born’ or ‘dragon’. Bae explains that gokok looks like taegeuk(korea national flag inside symbol) and a form of energy creation. She is using gokok to make it into ear rings, bangles and necklaces. 

“It is my will to promote art + education through artistic expressions of accessories combined with stories of history.” 

DDP display
August last year, Bae made for the Dongdaemun Design Plaza and her works are attracting an attention of visitors especially with her brand ‘Hwan’. She got an inspiration from Hwan-guk, the mythical state of Korea described in Hwandan Gogi, for the brand; thus named it as ‘Hwan’. 

Many of her works at the DDP are popular among tourists from many country.

“I feel great knowing that foreign tourists like my works. It also makes me feel good when I overhear people saying ‘Mmm, this is different’. I’m much encouraged by this and I will introduce new product lines in the year 2019. I hope the excellence of Bae Jin Gyeong Oguksidae will spread to the world over Korea,”