Rimm CHAE has been creating “sculptural painting” based on the use of Ottchil (漆), or Korean lacquer, and mother-of-pearl. She also demonstrates the novel potential of Ottchil as pure fine art through her lacquer landscape paintings. Jewelry design is often characterized as a form of wearable art. When they’re not decoratively worn or displayed in a highly secure setting, the gemstones are usually tucked inside a safe, away from the gaze of viewers and the risk of theft. For Chae Rimm, whose career as a jewelry designer had been continuously on the rise since 2000, this hiddenness became a point of frustration. “Seeing my works making splendid, yet only brief, appearances at exhibitions, before being boxed up once again and put away in the dark, weighed heavily on my mind,” she said.

Rimm CHAE’s artwork reinvents Korean sensibilities and landscapes conjured up by “Arirang” through inner imagery. A polyptych comprising panels, it recreates the elements of traditional aesthetics (lines, colors, and empty spaces) with a modern twist and her unique insights. She uses creative lines based on the traditional color schemes known as Obangsaek (五方色) and Obgansaek. As she notes, “The yellow, blue, red, white, and black hues that constitute Obangsaek are beautiful colors reflecting the principles of nature.” A designer of traditional accessories, she evokes oriental moods in her works and ponders over the temporality of colors — a concept that forms the spiritual root of traditional Korean paintings. She mixes colors, peels them off, reinterprets them, and redesigns them while revealing the innate texture of lacquer. She sometimes employs vivid primary colors, fills the panel with light and soft pastel tones, or expresses depths using achromatic colors. Her work, which encompasses diverse contrasting values (e.g. the traditional and the contemporary, the East and the West, and light and darkness), leaves lingering feelings amid the juxtaposition of the simple and the profound as well as the bold and the delicate.