Title of art	타이티 (지파니 꽃)/Tahiti (Tipanie Flower)			Sector	Korean painting (한국화)
Art specifications	33?23.5cm			Material technique	Color on paper
Collection year	1998			Production year	1969
Gallery	Seoul Museum of Art			Artist	Chun Kyung-ja
Description of art	Chun Kyung-ja established a unique style of the traditional chaesaekhwa [oriental color painting]. While chaesaekhwa comprises the majority of her best-known paintings, Chun also created many travel paintings, ink and color wash paintings, illustrations, and drawings. Chun embarked on a series of trips overseas for about 30 years since 1969. Chun’s travel paintings are her unique genre of works based on the artist’s sketches capturing the moments and experiences she witnessed during her trips. From 1964 to 1974, Chun created quick pen or pencil sketches during her travels abroad, later lightly painting them over with watercolor. Such style can be seen in her travel paintings created in the South Pacific and Europe in 1969, demonstrating Chun's expert sketching skills. Since her trips to Africa in 1974, Chun reflected the primitive aesthetics in her sketched lines colored with gouache. Her travel paintings transformed to feature more vibrant, primary colors. Whereas her early travels produced more in situ sketches drawn on site, Chun’s works from her travels eventually became more complete paintings in vibrant colors and fantastical compositions with each trip. Through such process, Chun’s travel paintings evolved from mere records of the artist’s trips, to paintings filled with unique and mystical wonder, establishing it as an independent genre of chaesaekhwa. The frangipani trees found in the backyard of Gauguin’s residence are depicted in (1969). Beneath the lush palm and frangipani trees stands a woman. A totem pole takes up the center of the painting. Chun sketched the outlines with quick strokes, while coloring the background with a thin layer of paint to give a spacious feeling to the work. Chun traveled to Tahiti in order to find Paul Gauguin’s traces, which could only be unearthed in the white frangipani blossoms and lush tropical plants in the backyard. Of the frangipani, Gauguin was most fond of the fragrant white ones. Chun thought of Gauguin’s La Orana Maria (1891) at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, and visited multiple places to create several sketches with a similar backdrop as the Gauguin piece. The sketches mainly feature women sitting or standing under the frangipani trees or close-ups of the trees themselves. Everywhere Chun went, there were frangipani flowers, which reminded her of Gauguin each time and filled her with gratitude.
Address	61, Deoksugung-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul			Source	Seoul Metropolitan Government