The Fifth National Conference of Mothers was held in the capital city of Pyongyang in December last year and a performance was given for its participants, in which an instrumental music and sand drawing “Thought of Mother” was highly acclaimed by the audience.

The drawing vividly depicted in nine minutes the life of a mother who had given birth to five children and brought them up to be a smelter, farmer and scientist, before she was awarded the Communist Mother Honour Prize at the conference in recognition of her merits. It was created by young artists of the sand picture section of the Mansudae Art Studio.

Sand drawing accompanied by instrumental music is a form of Korean-style theatrical art in which an artist casts a fistful of sand on a backlit glass to draw various pictures swiftly to the tune of music pieces. It is projected on the stage screen with the help of a camera.

An oil painting, Korean painting, sculpture, handicraft and other art works can be said to represent still objects alone that have already been made, but sand picture, an animation.

Sand drawing, which began to be created in our country from the 2010s, made its debut in a music and dance performance staged by the Mansudae Art Troupe in April 2011. At the event sand drawing “They will tell about the soldier’s love” won the accolade from the audience. Since then, many works have been staged up to now.

A sand drawing can be depicted by one or two or several artists at the same time.

“Pyongyang Is Best” was given at the grand celebration performance in April 2012. Four artists presented various three-dimensional scenes, including newly-built Changjon Street, Taehongdan Plain, prototype machine tools, Kaeson Youth Park, an ostrich farm and others, to the melody of a grand orchestra, vividly portraying the thematic and ideological content of the piece of work.

In sand drawing, a scene is depicted, and then erased or cut out to depict another form or scene, and that process arouses curiosity and mystery of the audience which cannot be compared to the appreciation of other art works.

Sand drawing, which requires the artist to show the morphological features of an object with a single hand movement in a short time, can express sometimes a mysterious feeling that ordinary artists cannot describe with brushwork at a stroke.

Our creators have introduced colour sand into the creation to meet modern aesthetic tastes only to give a stronger sense of reality to the audience.

To cite an example. “We Are the Happiest in the World” created in 2022 depicts children drawing the national flag.

Our sand drawings contribute to the people’s cognitive education as they show in an exciting and interesting way the process of producing a work with a certain storyline, rather than displaying sentimental dexterity or skills. They truthfully reflect ideological feelings of our people, thus leaving a lasting impression on the audience.

We are pooling our wisdom and passion with a desire to create fresher and better works which will bring pleasure to the people.

Kim Kyu Gwon, Merited Artist of the Mansudae Art Studio