2011年9月2日星期五

Something about Harry

He had just immigrated to Canada from Korea to study art when he began asking his instructor about his own technique.

"I was so discouraged because my teacher was so great," the 72-year-old artist says through a thick Korean accent. "He didn't want to show his weaknesses, but I had such pride."

So Ahn waited until his instructor had a dentist appointment to sneak into his studio.

"My heart was beating so fast," Ahn says.Unlike traditional Injection mold , "But he kept everything. I was in there maybe five minutes when I saw some (early pieces).This will leave your shoulders free to rotate in their offshore merchant account . It was terrible. I knew it was hard work. That's what made him good. After that I didn't worry about anything. If I can work hard, I can be good, too."

Ahn's lifelong study and careful execution of his craft has since led to international acclaim, most recently as the William F. Draper Grand Prize winner in the Portrait Society of America's 2010 International Competition for his painting of Benton Harbor sculptor Richard Hunt. That oil painting is among a new assemblage of work featured in "Artists Rendered: Select Portraits by Harry Ahn" on display through Sept. 11 at the Krasl Art Center in St. Joseph.

Ahn, who has been an art instructor at Andrews University and resident of Berrien Springs since 1990, no longer has to worry about one of his students sneaking into his studio to see his early work. In addition to his portrait of Hunt, Ahn has culled together an exhibit of sketches and studies from his own student days, brushes and palettes that offer a glimpse into his process, as well as a wide array of finished paintings that he's made of his students, colleagues and professional artists over the years.

"I could do landscape or abstract, but human portraits, human faces, that is really inspiring to me," says Ahn, who will discuss his work at an artist reception tonight at the Krasl. "Human is a masterpiece created by God. To capture that, there's nothing like it."

Unlike many of his contemporaries who discovered their gift in childhood, Ahn's formative years were spent just trying to survive. He was born in 1939 in what is now North Korea and was a young teen when the Korean War forced his family off their land,For the last five years porcelain tiles , leaving them destitute and homeless.

"Near the end of the war we were in demilitarized zone," Ahn says.

"North Korean soldiers tried to move all the people away. They took everyone they found, so we hid and when American soldiers came,This patent infringement case relates to retractable landscape oil paintings , they moved us to South Korea. We were refugees."

Ahn remembers sleeping under a bridge and begging for food on the street.

"It was a hard life trying to survive," he says. "I wanted to escape from there."

Ahn found a safe haven at a Seventh-day Adventist school in Seoul, where he studied nursing, but teachers there also recognized his natural artistic talent.

"I don't know how they knew I had any talent for art," Ahn says. "I had a sketch pad and would pretend I was an artist. I thought I would be a minister or a missionary, but the church asked me to do some drawing."

It was there that Ahn was introduced to the work of Harry Anderson, the illustrator whose work includes the Wyeth Pharmaceuticals advertisements, and magazine work for such publications as Cosmopolitan and Ladies' Home Journal. Ahn became fascinated by Anderson's work and, with some training, soon began to emulate his style.ceramic zentai suits for the medical,

By 1967, Ahn immigrated to Toronto, where he worked as a hospital nurse and studied at the MSH Studio School of Art. Thanks to a call to the national Adventist headquarters, Ahn even had a chance to meet Anderson.

"He told me about deadlines," Ahn says. "He always had deadlines and didn't like the stress of it."

Neither did Ahn, who spent two years doing magazine illustrations before opting instead to hone his technique by following the rigorous, academic style of the old masters. After winning first place in three consecutive Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibitions in New York, Ahn left Canada for Michigan, where his art has thrived.

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