Yeong Ja Jung: Plant Series (1992)

For this particular series, here is an art critique from the former Director of the Museum of Photographic Arts San Diego, Arthur Ollman dated 26 April 1994:

It has been said that all translations are wrong-anyone who lives far from their own culture easily understands the wisdom of that quote. To See reality clearly without translation is, therefore, always useful. A camera is generally thought of as a tool of recording, an instrument without opinions, a transcriber of truths. The English word, "photography" comes from the Latin photo, or "light" and graphy, "drawing." While "light drawing", may imply such opinionated hand manipulation, in other languages, the term used for this medium is more like "recording the truth." But what is the truth of any do we assume that simply holding a camera will give us access to it?

When a very intelligent and sensitive individual such as Yeong Ja Jung arrived in the United States, it may have seemed impossible to make sense of this remarkably diverse culture. As America has developed, it has absorbed so many influences from so many other cultures, that no amount of preparation can help the new arrival to penetrate it.

A camera is a wonderful instrument for beginning to organise a new environment. The frame, the decisiveness, the intimate focus all allow the photographer to take control of the visual environment.

Yeong Ja Jung became my student in 1979 and I immediately recognised great eagerness and intellect. I also recognised that she felt too much respect for America(and a shyness, based on language differences) to become a cultural critic or editorialist with a camera. She instead was interested in purity, and the essence of things. Her subject soon became pure light. this sort of photography is not based on understanding culture, or language, it is not about narrative or linear truth. It is more about physical phenomena and the rupture of absolute colour. It is about the truth unrelated to nations or borders, cultures or languages.

We have been thrilled by European cathedrals with their glorious stained glass windows. Some of us have been fortunate enough to view brilliant sunlight looking up from five meters below the surface of tropical waters. The direct experience of coloured light is for more luminous than the reflected light we normally see object by. After many experiments, Yeong Ja Jung realised that natural materials, fruits, leaves, flowers, vegetables seen by powerfully transmitted light can create the same transcendent pure colour as that of stained glass.

Brilliant colour is not enough to make great art, of course, Subtlety, balance, restraint, refinement, all became part of Yeong Ja Jung's virtuosity.

Through her art, we develop new appreciation for the purity of simple objects and the nearly spiritual rhapsody of perfect coloured light. She is wise enough to allow the shapes and internal structure of the plant forms to dictate their own sensuous compositions.

Yeong Ja Jung shows us the profundity of a world we easily overlook everyday. Like many of the first photographers, she turns the common into the amazing-a performance that encourages us, magically, to believe in alchemy. More importantly, it renews our love affair with the natural world.

Posted by: Isidora Lee, Executive Director