Kim Taek Sang: As It Is

About the exhibition

Kim Taek Sang lets water and pigment do most of the work. Color spreads, dries and settles in layers on the canvas as the seasons turn, and the painter's part is largely to wait.

Three earlier series stand for spring, summer and autumn: Breathing light, Flows and Resonance. The new Ice Blossom series adds winter, a season the artist says had been out of reach. Water and pigment freeze and thaw below zero, leaving crystal marks that nobody draws.

The show runs at the same time in Seoul and at two Johyun Gallery spaces in Busan, and five paintings across the three venues stretch past ten meters. The video work There and the winter piece Non-linearity are in Busan. The gallery sets this slow method against an age of AI, where even small decisions go to machines.

About the artist

Kim Taek Sang studied painting at Chung-Ang University and Hongik University and taught at Cheongju University until retiring in 2020. Johyun Gallery dates the artist's work with water and pigment to the early 1990s and notes that it is often grouped with post-Dansaekhwa or abstract painting.

Sources: Johyun Gallery: As It Is