▲ Hyunchae Jeong / CEO of Ovia Art

Hyunchae Jeong, CEO of Ovia Art, is engaged in various artistic and cultural activities from event and exhibition planning and organizing to producing art products and teaching paintings. As an artist herself, she received a rising artist prize at the Texas Hidalgo Border Festival Korean Artists Invitational Exhibition and held a number of solo and group exhibitions home and abroad including the Sejong Center and the Galeria Beaut’e Du Matin calme in Paris. 

SIAEAN

 By using Korean folk painting animal characters such as monkey, bird and tiger, Jeong introduced a unique artistic brand SIAEAN with differentiated designs and colors. The people who recognize SIAEAN is gradually increasing and some manias are already indulging in collection. 

Currently, the characters are made to order and when the popular characters take its shape, a mass production will come into force in the future. Alongside the characters, Jeong is working on introducing the services that put the face of people on their smartphone case. If successful, the services will expand to T-shirts and mats. 

 As a folk painting artist herself, Jeong says “I try to draw fancy images for new combinations and I also emphasize the decorative element of Korean folk painting to create fantasy and unusual landscape in my art works. It is exciting for me to personify each folk painting image into a symbol that contains our wishes. So I turn these works into art products.”

 Participatory one day art class

 Apart from character making and folk painting, Jeong is running a participatory one day art class (currently at the Ovia Art Gallery). This action painting class spreads a large canvas on the floor and encourages participators to pour and splash paints using their whole body. 

 The Ovia Art Gallery is located on Dalmaji-gil, Haeundae, Busan and Jeong uses the rooftop swimming pool with fantastic sea view for the class. “Watching the beautiful sea of Haeundae, letting loose of our body, and splashing paints with whole body can create a fantastic abstract art. In other words, everybody can be artists through my participatory one day art class on this rooftop of the sea view gallery.”

 When asked future plan, Jeong said that she had an idea for art collaboration on Korean folk painting animal characters. Meanwhile, she is working on photo studio + animal hospital collaboration at the moment.