Kwon Young-Woo

Republic of Korea

Jongno-gu Seoul

Kukje Gallery

Painting

Untitled

Courtesy of the artist’s estate and Kukje Gallery 

Photo: Chunho An

The creator made everything but did not give a name. Nature itself is an abstraction. I only discover, choose, reform, and add from various phenomena in nature.
– Kwon Young-Woo

Kukje Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of Kwon Young-Woo, a leading artist of the Dansaekhwa movement, on view from December 9, 2021, through January 30, 2022, at the gallery’s K2 space. Marking the artist’s third presentation at the gallery, following solo shows in 2015 and 2017, the exhibition will not only showcase works from the Paris period (1978-1989) defined by Kwon’s iconic work with white hanji (Korean paper), but will also feature for the first time, colored hanji works made upon his return to Korea in 1989. Newer works from the 2000s that incorporate geometric shapes by overlapping hanji on wooden panels will also be shown. The comprehensive span of these distinctive bodies of work allows the exhibition to provide an authoritative overview of Kwon Young-Woo’s practice and the development of his formative language that uses traditional Asian materials in a modern way. It provides a unique opportunity to reflect on the artist’s seminal practice, commitment to traditional aesthetic philosophies, as well as lifelong experimentation and innovation.

The first floor of the exhibition presents approximately 11 colored works that Kwon completed shortly after returning to Korea from Paris in 1989, as well as 7 works of layered hanji from the 2000s. This exhibition marks the first time these works in color are shown to the public. While hanji was the artist’s primary medium, Kwon mixed Western gouache and meok (Chinese ink) to add color. Unlike his previous works in which he tried to add spontaneity by tearing and piercing the surface, these paintings are characterized by flat, uniform planes that evoke roller (brush) marks, displaying black, dark brown, and yellow tones created with gouache and meok combined in different ratios. 

This balance of different mediums reflects the artist's philosophy on how he does not distinguish between materials from different cultures. Explaining his use of gouache and Chinese ink, Kwon said, “I do not make any distinction between them as others do, and just regard them all as black.”⁴ While Chinese ink smudges and spreads like watercolor, gouache, an opaque water-based pigment, coagulates on its own. Thus, they counteract each other, leaving a lasting impression on the paper. Color, as used by Kwon, is not an additive to the paper, but more of a second surface, existing as a kind of veil. Furthermore, the artist uses the subtle nuances of color, integrating it with the texture of the paper to generate moments of amplified energy, composing space that cannot be bounded.

Kwon, who had repeatedly experimented with three-dimensional paintings by composing around appropriated and found objects in the 1990s, returned to two-dimensional works in the 2000s, continuing his unique exploration of the painting plane. In these more recent works, the artist arranges and reveals geometric shapes through thin layers of hanji on wooden panels. He explores the density of white by applying one or two layers of hwaseonji, a thin and tough type of paper, which is one of the raw materials that create hanji. The more these layers overlap, the more the subtle depth of the paper fiber is revealed—a focus that became the basis of these newer works. Initially inspired by the process of gluing hwaseonji on a drawing board, the resulting layers created elegant yet unexpected dynamics with the paper, that depended on two simple factors: the amount of hwaseonji and glue.

While traditional hanji was his main medium, Kwon consistently used his own hands and handmade tools to study its materiality, employing Chinese ink and color as secondary methods as needed. This focus on the surface was a tenacious and continuous process of realizing the potential of the painting plane, linking his practice to those of modern Western artists. Through the world of abstraction that completely transcended boundaries of the East and the West, Kwon successfully implemented his search for the “connection of the human mind and matter” and reached a “modern return to the origins of the East.”

Kwon Young-Woo

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