Baek Heena – laureate 2020 1
Baek Heena, picture book artist ‘Baek’s enchantin
g picture book worlds engage, amuse, amaze, and move us.’ An elevated, enchanted everyday is often a core element in Baek Heena’s stories. This is particularly the case in Al-sa-taang (2017), about a young boy named DongDong whose life takes a decisive turn when he stumbles upon some magical sweets that give him the power to hear and speak to animals, inanimate objects, and his dead grandmother. The story takes the form of an interior monologue by DongDong. In a subtle and openended manner, Baek shows how DongDong gradually achieves a better understanding of himself and others. Above all, this entails coming closer to his father and finding a pathway out of his solitary existence. Baek’s early picture books show a fascination with dollhouselike environments, populated with flat figures cut from paper or dolls sewn of cloth. Dal Sha-bet (2011) is set in an apartment building on a sweltering summer’s 19 night, so hot that the heat wakes up the residents. Renewing the picture book medium Baek Heena develops new techniques and artistic solutions that inject elements from handcraft and animation into her books in new and exciting ways. Baek’s feeling for materials, spatiality, physical form, and gesture is impressive and innovative. Her intricately composed picture books invite multiple readings and close contemplation of their minutely constructed visual worlds. Yet their skillful execution never stands in the way of the story. Baek’s enchanting picture book worlds engage, amuse, amaze, and move us. The child’s perspective runs through them all, as does an unshakeable belief in the power of play and imagination in our lives. From the pages of her picture books a chorus of voices invite us to step into their world and find new ways to see, think, and feel.