스티브 카발로 작가 4일 ‘위안부 초상화전’ 개막
“위안부 할머니들은 저의 할머니와 같습니다. 그분들의 아픈 기억(記憶)을 세상에 알리고 싶습니다.”
미국의 ‘위안부 초상화가’로 잘 알려진 스티브 카발로 작가가 뉴저지에서 위안부 피해할머니들을 초청한 가운데 특별한 전시회를 연다.
카발로 작가는 3일부터 21일까지 뉴저지 티넥에 위치한 ‘나비뮤지엄오브디아트’에서 개인전 ‘우리가 피흘린 많은 상처로부터(From Many Wounds We Bleed)’를 개최한다.
▲ ‘Eulogies’
4일 예정된 오프닝 행사엔 이옥선, 강일출 두분의 위안부피해자 할머니가 참석할 예정이다. 두 할머니는 한국 나눔의집과 일본군 ‘위안부 역사관’, 국제평화인권센터 주관으로 지난달 21일부터 오는 7일까지 LA와 위싱턴 DC, 뉴욕을 방문하며 일본군대의 만행(蠻行)과 일본정부의 비양심적인 행태를 질타(叱咤)하고 있다.
카발로 작가는 위안부피해 여성들의 아픔을 작품 속에 담아내어, 전쟁범죄를 고발하고 잘못된 역사를 바로잡기 위해 작품 활동을 이어가는 주인공이다. 자신만의 독특한 수채화 표현기법으로 전쟁의 참상(慘狀)을 표현하는 그는 이번 전시회에 ‘It Can’t be helped’, ‘Eulogies’, ‘From Many Wounds We Bleed’, ‘In My Past’, ‘Not a Sparrow Falls‘, ‘Roots’ 등 최신작들을 다수 선보인다.
▲ ‘From Many Wounds We Bleed’
전시회와 함께 위안부 문제에 관심을 갖고 있는 한인들을 비롯, 미국의 정치인들과 각계각층의 시민들이 모여 할머니들과 좌담형식의 행사도 진행된다.
카발로 작가와 위안부 여성들의 인연은 1992년 한국인 이웃을 통해 한일간 과거의 역사를 듣게 된 것으로 거슬러 올라간다. 나치 홀로코스트와 일본인 강제수용소 등 사회성 강한 메시지를 표현해온 그는 2차대전 중 일본제국주의 군대에 의해 인류역사상 유례를 찾기 힘든 잔혹한 성범죄가 자행(恣行)된 것에 큰 충격을 받았다고 했다.
그는 위안부 문제의 진실을 더 알기위해 김대실 감독의 다큐영화 ‘침묵의 소리(1999년)’ 등 각종 자료를 섭렵(涉獵)했고 한국을 방문해 나눔의 집에 기거하는 할머니들과 전쟁의 폐해에 대한 대화를 나누고 위로하며 전쟁의 참상과 비극을 예술적으로 형상화하는데 힘썼다.
▲ ‘In My Past’
또한 팰리세이즈팍 도서관에서 큐레이터로 근무하면서 도서관 앞에 세워진 미주 최초의 위안부기림비 디자인을 제작하고 위안부관련 다큐필름 상영, 역사를 바로잡기위한 많은 시위에도 동참하는 등 누구보다 위안부 이슈에 앞장서고 있다.
나비뮤지엄오브디아트의 쥴리 장 디렉터와 민다미 이사는 “한국과 일본에서 일어난 전쟁의 비극이 먼 과거가 아님에도 불구하고 한국인들조차 먼 나라 이야기처럼 인식되고 있는 현실에서 한국인의 아픈 과거를 보듬으며 작품 활동을 이어나가는 스티브 카발로 작가의 위안부 작품 전시는 큰 의미를 두고 있다”고 입을 모았다.
카발로 작가는 “대다수 일본인들이 잘못된 역사의식을 갖고 있다는 점에 놀랐다”면서 “위안부문제 해결을 위해서는 길고 어려운 시간과의 싸움도 필요한데, 생존해 계시는 위안부 할머니들이 많지 않고 대부분 고령(高齡)이라 한국과 미국에서 이어지는 각종 대담과 시위에 참석하기가 어려운 것 같다”고 안타까워했다.
▲ ‘Roots’
“위안부 할머니들은 저의 할머니와 같습니다. 꽃보다 여리고 아름다운 그들의 젊은 시절이 눈물로 얼룩져있었다고 생각하면, 너무나 가슴이 아픕니다. 인종의 다름을 떠나 전 세계인이 알고 잘못된 점은 반드시 바로 잡아야 하며, 그러기 위해 저도 계속 작품 활동을 할 것입니다.”
이번 전시의 오프닝 리셉션은 4일 오후 3시와 9일 오후 5시 등 두 차례 진행된다. 나비박물관내에 위치한 나비뮤지움오브디아트는 지난 4월 개관한 아트전문 갤러리로서 개인전, 그룹전, 초대전을 기획, 다양한 미술작품들을 전시하며 뉴저지의 새로운 예술명소로 떠오르고 있다.
뉴욕=민지영특파원
newsroh@gmail.com
▲ ‘Snow Fence 1, 2, 3 (from left)’
<꼬리뉴스>
From Many Wounds We Bleed
Steve Cavallo Solo Exhibition
Steve Cavallo is an artist living in New Jersey. Since graduating from the School of Visual Arts in 1979, his art has been exhibited nationwide in art galleries and reproduced on book and magazine covers for over three decades. He works in a variety of mediums, especially watercolor, in a style that might be called dramatic realism. The human figure is a defining element in his work, as stories of real people's lives are told with pathos and joy. Recent exhibitions include Eulogies (solo exhibition) at Western Gallery in Los Angeles, I came so far for Beauty at Riverside Gallery in Hackensack, NJ, and There But for Fortune (solo exhibition) at Eunnam Museum in Gwangju, South Korea and Comfort Women in George Mason University in Virginia.
As an adolescent, his interests in art and music had always evolved around human rights issues. In his youth, the protest songs of Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs sparked his interest in equality and injustices.
As Cavallo began his studies at New York’s School of Visual Arts, his work gravitated towards the issues of the abused, the misguided and the oppressed. He work several years freelancing for the NAACP doing an annual calendar for Carver Federal Savings Bank as well as group exhibits on Human Rights.
▲ ‘Not a Sparrow Falls‘
In the early 1990s while traveling on Highway 395 near Independence,CA. Cavallo saw a sign for the entrance to Manzanar Relocation Camp. He pulled into the historic site and photographed the remnants of the camp. "It was such an eerie feeling, to walk among the ruins of what was once a prison camp for people who were innocent; they just happened to be of Japanese ancestry.” Weeks later when returning home to New Jersey he began a series on the internment camps, speaking to a former prisoner of war who spent 3 years of her youth in a facility at Tule Lake.This small series of paintings was part of several art exhibits and eventually, after spending sometime on the back burner, it re-emerged and became part of a series entitled “Playing Army”, which were watercolor paintings of children playing with action figures. The action figures, which were painted as the green plastic soldiers that many children played with in the 1960s, depicted the atrocities of war. Green action figures of holocaust victims, internment victims, orphans and widows of fallen soldiers as well as “Comfort Women”.
“Beginning this series, the term Comfort Women was new to me. A neighbor suggested to me, if I was going to portray the horrors of war, I should do some research on this subject. I began reading a book by Dai sil Kim Gibson entitled Silence Broken, testimonies of former sex slaves, and began work on a group of paintings that would eventually lead me to Korea and to become the designer of the first memorial dedicated to Comfort Women in the Western World”.
In 2008, after being interviewed by KBS, a Korean news station, He was invited to Korea to meet with 8 of the surviving victims from this World War II atrocity. In September of 2008 he flew to the House of Sharing in Gwang Ju South Korea and spent a week with these women getting to know them.
Upon his return, he met with several Korean interns and members of the Korean American Voter’s Council to discuss the possibility of doing a memorial for these women in America. “I contacted the Mayor of Palisades Park, James Rotundo who had been a longtime friend of mine, and explained who comfort women were. He immediately said that he was interested in working with me on this project and the wheels were in motion”. One year later, in October of 2010 they unveiled the first memorial dedicated to this issue and these women. Following this historic event, Cavallo was invited to exhibit at the Kupferberg Holocasut Center in Queens NY and then to Korea for a solo exhibit at Eunnam Museum in Gwang Ju.
In July of 2012 he exhibited in Los Angeles CA at the Gallery Western where the exhibit was covered by Fox International news. This exhibit has now been followed by another group show in Fairfax Virginia featuring seven artists who all focus their work on Comfort Women, including author and filmmaker Dai Sil Kim-Gibson, who wrote the book that he was inspired by many years ago when he began this series.
It is now 2014. Steve Cavallo still works on the comfort women issue. He has been fortunate enough to have been able to work in some way on three of the eight memorials dedicated to Comfort Women. His newest exhibit at the Nabi Museum of the Arts is entitled “THROUGH MANY WOUNDS WE BLEED” and will be on display from August 3-30 at the museum inside the World of Wings Complex. These large watercolors focus on the day to day struggles that the women endure, rather than touching upon the war years, a subject the women themselves would rather not talk about.
Cavallo is honored to be joined by two former “Comfort Women” Ok Son Yi and Il Chul Kang on the first of the two receptions he will have at the Nabi Museum. On August 4that 3pm, Halmonie Yi and Kang will meet with Cavallo and view the exhibit. The public is welcome to attend. On August 9that 5 pm there will be a Meet the Artist Reception where all are welcome to see the exhibit and enjoy light refreshments.
In 2015 Steve Cavallo will exhibit at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City in a two person exhibit called “Of Human Bondage” exploring Human Trafficking past and present.
뉴욕 : 
파리 : 
서울 : 
