모자이크로 그려낸 회화 작품으로 감상하는 성경 이야기,
신앙인이 아니어도 쉽게 예수님의 행적을 따라 사랑을 배우는 책.

(영문판 특징)
그동안 재미마주 출판사를 통해 독특한 모자이크 기법의 회화작품으로 그린 성경이야기를 그림책처럼 선보여 온 화가 이호연의『예수님, 사랑의 예수님』영문판입니다. 찬연한 원색과 은색의 조화를 강조한 편집은 그대로이며, 더욱 선명한 칼라와 밝은 은색 바탕을 구현한 책입니다. 중간 중간 구멍이 뚫려 있어, 다음 페이지에 나오는 그림에 대한 궁금증을 유발하기도 합니다. 해외 미션 활동을 하는 신앙인에게도 유용한 책이지만 신앙인이 아니어도 예수의 종적을 그린 수많은 유명 화가들의 성화와는 다른 현대적인 해석의 그림으로 성경 속 이야기를 떠올리며 새로운 미술 감상을 촉발케 합니다.

Jesus of Love Bible Stories from the Art of Ho-Yun Lee Many artists have illustrated stories in the Bible in various forms through times from Leonardo da Vinci to Pablo Picasso. Here, we see the artist Ho- Yun Lee’s illustrations. In this book, he laid out Bible stories in beautifully colored mosaics, where children’s hearts are transported onto the pages with the artist’s transparent and pure perspective. Among the numerous illustrations created in the world today, it is a rare opportunity to encounter a series of works by an unknown artist, with each piece connected to the others, allowing for the appreciation of a holistic flow of art in the context of the artist’s whole career. This is also true of many well-known artists in history?holistic appreciation of an artist’s world is much more than partial appreciation of the whole works.

Encounters with artworks from a marketplace selling copied images of representative art simply cannot recreate the experiences of personal visits to a planned exhibition and the purchase of published collections for deeper study. Some may ask, “Why do we have to see the whole works?” A Western art historian named Earnst Gombrich starts his famed book, The Story of Art by saying, “There really is no such thing as art. There are only artists.” This opening remark makes us realize the true value of all the works that we appreciate and wish to see mounted on our walls. To some contemporary admirers who reduce paintings to a simple decorative article or a tool for fulfilling their own tastes, the identity of an artist may not be too important. What is truly important, however, is the person?our quest to know “Who is the artist that created this art?” The exquisiteness of art lies in its power to summon all the various tools of expression, including language, to create an illustrated artist?the person. From a painting created with various elements, including the artistic composition, colors, and planes, a viewer gets a feel for the artist, and, at this very moment, the concept of art is revived in the viewer’s heart through the eye. To appreciate the artist, having the big picture is essential, which is not achieved in one or some but through all of the works created throughout the artist’s life.

If you happen to see a piece of art by Ho-Yun Lee, you may feel that, in the absence of any explanation, it is his endurance and warmth that flow out from his use of colors to create a meticulous festival for the eyes that spreads out to all corners of the canvas. The stories he illustrates on the canvas contain many little tales to resemble a page from a child’s journal. This is what gives some the impression that Ho-Yun Lee is an artist of the naive art expressed in mosaic form by a modified-impressionist technique. Viewing the whole of his illustrations as a series of processes, however, traversing the period when he was tutored by American abstract artist Pat Lipsky, going through his emergence as a professional artist, and coming to his active artistic period of holding exhibitions back home in South Korea, it is clear that the art of Ho-Yun Lee is not naive art created for mere enjoyment with childlike sentiments. Rather, his interest lies in engaging himself in gigantic discourses of the diversified harmony between colors and forms, as with the futurist Robert Delaunay or Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee, who tried to modify post-impressionist formative language as their own contemporary abstract art.

One step deeper into Lee’s illustrated stories, his own stories of the Bible are revealed and unfolded as complementary colors meet without borders, as in fairy tales. Lee’s serial illustrations of these stories are classified into two categories. One is for works modified in his own artful touches and spiritual empathy of well-known Renaissance masterpieces of Bible stories, such as da Vinci’s Last Supper or Raphael’s Christ’s Transformation. He presents these as Last Supper, under the same title as da Vinci’s, and as Ascension of Jesus. The other category is the stories he created taking motifs from his own everyday life with added layers of The Deeds of Christ in the Bible. Ho-Yun Lee illustrates creative situations where Jesus appears in an alleyway, in the middle of a street, or at a baseball stadium or wedding. Illustrated by some other creator, these might be regarded as nonsensical pieces aimed at some Hollywood-style fantasy. In Ho-Yun Lee’s series of Bible stories, however, these everyday?or ‘Korean’ (in some sense)?imaginary illustrations are appreciated as purely natural and sincere. They are humorous and invite the viewers to engage in deep thinking.

They are naive, but at the same time, complex and exquisite in their color compositions. In a word, after appreciating the whole of Ho-Yun Lee’s Bible stories collection, we can say, “Ho-Yun Lee’s art is so true to the artist.” Instead of appreciating the expressionist trend bent on the futile greatness of conceptual art, with scale and dynamics prevailing over contemporary art, the viewers of Lee’s works can joyfully appreciate the exquisite contrast and harmony of abstract colors and planes, as we do with Jogakbo, Korean traditional patchwork from the Joseon Dynasty. What we see from Lee’s art is not the type of religion in overwhelming Renaissance praise for the Holy Spriit with grand organ music in accompaniment. Instead, we are invited to feel the warmth and endless love of Jesus yearned for by ordinary people in their everyday lives, along with Lee’s own pure heart in genuine faith that helped him overcome his disability.
-Text by Ho Baek Lee