Joshua Lee

My inspiration for this piece of work is the painting War and Peace by Hendra Gunawan c. 1950s. Hendra Gunawan was born on June 11th 1918 (My birthday 92 years ago) and died on July 17th 1983. Hendra Gunawan was a guerilla fighter, and later activist against the government of Indonesia at the time. He incarcerated because of it, but continued to paint whilst in prison on the pieces of canvas that were available to him.  

There are mountains in the background of War and Peace which contrast their blue hues to the earthy and dark hues of the revolutionary fighters in the foreground. These mountains remind me of Seoraksan (설악산) which is a mountain in South Korea. The motif in my painting resembles the mountain line which you can see from the viewing point at the pinnacle of Seoraksan. The square prints repeating beneath the mountain motif represent the colours visible from the top of Seoraksan. The earthy reds represent the earth and the clay making up the base of the mountains, the varying yellows represent the colours of the sunlight shining down on the trees and Seoraksan in the autumn when the leaves turn a rich golden colour and the blue tones represent the sky at Seoraksan which can either be a light blue on a nice day or dark and hateful when a storm is coming.   

For me, Seoraksan represents peace and tranquility. This is because when I visited Seoraksan for the first time and I was hiking to the top with my grandfather, I was simply shocked at the natural beauty and the peace. I had never seen anything like it before. It was one of the first times I just enjoyed natural beauty rather than looking for something to do. ​