Korean-inspired exhibition by leading Kiwi artist in Christchurch

Dunedin-based artist Kushana Bush drew inspiration from a residency in South Korea for her exhibition Hungry Ghosts.

Kushana was the inaugural recipient of the Asia:NZ/Arts Centre of Christchurch residency exchange and was based at the Changdong Art Studio in Seoul for two months.

She outlined  the significance of the residency in her development as an artist, noting that an objective for this residency was to use her “Korean experience and education to develop the visual devices already employed within my painting".

“What was interesting for me about Korean artistic traditions was that I knew very little about them in comparison to the better-known artistic traditions of India and Japan.”

Kushana explained that her latest series of works was influenced by her difficulty with being a vegetarian in a country where the concept wasn’t widely understood.

“No meal seemed free of some anxiety and a lot of preparation and work. Strangely it was this restriction, this unrest with something normally taken so for granted that I felt compelled to bring that experience into the work,” she continued.

She elaborated on how she fused an ancient Korean tradition with her recent experience.  “In the Buddhist art of Korea the concept of the hungry ghost, a figure doomed to stay perpetually hungry and craving resonated with me; a kind of monster figure with bloated tummy and tiny throat so food could never get in."

The exhibition is therefore part autobiographical.  “I started to play with the idea of yearning and the unquenching thirst for home, comfort and food.”

Kushana said that the residency had a profound effect on her career. “The experiences of this journey to Seoul will continue to affect my work for years to come, my discoveries of these traditional artworks will sustain many more ideas and help to contextualize the art of the East.”

“It has developed the devices used in my work and has helped me to understand my own freedoms as an artist in New Zealand, our rather short history as a country and geographical isolation encourages us to pick and choose the influences we use rather than being weighed down by traditions.”

Images courtesy of the Artist and the Art Centre/Asia New Zealand Foundation Artist Residency Exchange