Since he held close relations to government elite, he was able to have success as an oil painter hired as a part of the state-sponsored National Painting Project.
As one of the leading innovators of Dansaekwa, Chung's works were, and continue to be exhibited internationally in group and solo shows.
[2] Chung's university training made him familiar with Western modernism and this influence can be seen in his oil paintings that formalistically emulate Cubism and Art Informel.
[4] His 1958 work, Interrogation, shows the scars of war through the cracked surface of the paint and dark, reddish hues.
Among other Dansaekwa painters, Chung was also well-informed about American Abstract Expressionism, Art Informel, and Color Field Painting.
This series was characterized by black ink splotches or bleeds that brought attention to the edges of hanji paper.
After spreading the wet pulp on canvas, he would impress shapes and lines onto the surface to create a smooth areas amidst the bumpy mixture.
The effect was more controlled than his earlier Tak Series, and evoked an “opening” that meditation can bring to one’s chaotic mind.
His process is controlled and yet there is always an element of happenstance and chance since the pulp settles and dries on the canvas in unique ways.
In the artist’s words the works are, “paintings that hanji paints by itself.”[1] Korean art critic Yoon Jin-sup remarks that Chung’s, “creations are placed within an ecological, cosmological, and terrestrial perspective which is diametrically opposed to the formalist vision of Westerners.” Critic Lee Yil described Dansaekhwa artists to work in a, “post-minimal abstraction that is both post-formalist and post-materialist.” While that may be the critics’ takes, formal elements of Chung’s work were certainly guided by Eastern philosophy such as Dao (The Way) and Western elements of minimalist abstraction.
[citation needed] Chung was the childhood friend of Kim Jong-pil, Park Chung-hee’s right hand man and chair of the Democratic Republican Party.
With generous state-backed funds, artists such as Chung Chang-sup were hired and their works were bought by the state.