Korean-Canadian artist behind decades of Santa photos in Newfoundland

A celebrated Korean-Canadian artist has been behind decades of Christmastime mall Santa photos in eastern Newfoundland.

Ginok Song and her husband Bruce Lee have been taking family photos with Santa at the Avalon Mall in St. John's, N.L., since 2000. Song is a visual artist and painter whose work often draws on her memories from Korea in an exploration of identity and representation.

The themes that drive her art, especially around longing, extend to her holiday work at the mall. "I had a dark childhood, right? I lost something there," she said. "So I'm longing for these children to smile and when I see their smiles, I'm charged from that."

"When I see parents smiling at [their photo], there is something about it," she added. "We are part of their Christmas."

Song moved to Newfoundland in 2000 and lives in Petty Harbour, a fishing community roughly 10 kilometres south of St. John's. She and her photographer husband have a company called Photos Now, she said, describing it as a "mom-and-pop operation."

They got the contract doing Santa photos at the mall just months after she arrived in Newfoundland, she said.

When Song began painting in Korea, her work was often dark and angry, she said, reflecting her difficult childhood and the repression she felt as a woman in a patriarchal society. Living in Newfoundland changed her life — and her art. She let go of the child inside her, and found an identity as a Korean woman and artist in Newfoundland, she said.

She describes her painting style as "Atlantic magic realism." Her latest exhibit at The Rooms, Newfoundland and Labrador's provincial art gallery, was called, "I Reach Home, I am Serene."

It featured paintings of women in often otherworldly forms and settings. The images fuse memories from Song's life in Busan, Korea, and landscapes from Newfoundland and Labrador, according to her artist page.

A sense of longing, or of reaching into the past for some kind of abstract ideal, informs her art, she said. Watching a mother soothing her child before sitting on Santa's lap, or seeing her smile at the photo in her hands can evoke that same feeling, she said.

Christmas comes with its own sense of nostalgic longing for ideals, such as peace or family, she added.

She brings her artist's eye to the Santa photos, carefully ensuring each detail is in place. If a pant leg is accidentally rolled up, for example, Song will dart in to fix it, she said.

Mall lighting is difficult to work with. She and her husband have placed every bulb in their set with care, to bring more depth and brightness to their pictures, she said.

Lee designed the red suit worn by Santa, a role sometimes filled by one of his brothers, Song said. The material is a soft woven fabric called molton, which can withstand the many people who will sit on it each day, she explained.