Page 154 - TOP 10 CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS - Volume VI
P. 154

Mae was born in Seoul, Korea, as the second child of eight   which was surrounded by sprawling grass fields. Mae
           siblings. Her mother was a nurse and a devout Christian,   fondly remembers her time growing up there, a time of
           and her father was a chemical engineer and an inventor     sneaking between the gaps in the stone post fence with
           of a special dye. Both her parents grew up in the same     friends to play in the fields, happily making bracelets and

           rural farming village and received education in big cities.  rings with clover flowers.


           After marrying, they lived in Seoul until the Korean War   As she grew older, nature continued to fill her life. She went

           began, when Mae was just three years old. Her family was   to elementary school near Sam-chung Park Loop, Seoul,
           evacuated, and together they escaped to Busan city, at     and every morning she walked beside the flowing streams
           the very south of the country, where they lived until the   to her school. In fifth grade, her family moved to a new
           War had ceased. Her family then returned to Seoul some     house near the Han River, Seoul. She fondly remembers
           three years later, when Mae was six.                       her new home with its spacious garden overflowing with

                                                                      many kinds of flowers and fruit trees. Her grandfather
           Mae’s parents rented a house that was one part of a        also grew medicinal plants in the garden to store in his
           much larger traditional Korean house built during the Lee   medicine chest.
          TOP CONTEMPOR ARY ARTISTS  the King’s Palace (Kyung-Bok Gung), and the adjacent   Watercolor painting filled her heart at just 12 years
           Dynasty of old Korea. Not too far from the house was


                                                                      old, when a private tutor taught her this art form with
           building was the Japanese Ministry of Colonial Affairs,

          LIFTED SOUL, 2021 DIGITAL ART ON METAL 18X24 IN. | 45.7X60.9 CM.


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