Painters drawing famous paintings
are selected and appointed as world class saints of paintings. World famous
saints of paintings have their own unique creative subject and mode. Junior
scholars cherish forever after looking at painters who drew famous paintings
after some one hundred years later by appraising them as people of arts
history. It implicates that it is
that much difficult and hard for famous paintings
to be created.
In the nature, the world of miraculous virtue hidden in profound harmony
and mystery exists for people. People were born in history to find out mystery
of the nature and have lived together with the history while making history
too. And people will live forever in history to solve the homework.
ÀÚ¿¬°ú °øÁ¸ 99-1 Coexistance with Nature 140 x 193cn 1999
Arts of Yusan Min kyoung kap can
be said as the arts in a shape of inspiration compressed and abridged in
minimum language. A great Chines scholar of Chuang-tzu said that "the
nature is acquired through spirit without seeing with eyes, hearing with
ears, and feel with hearts while people observe and enjoy the nature."
This can be comparative to paintings of this
author. In his paintings, only the essence and soul of paintings the author
pursues are melted in high density while all worldly mundane spirits as
well as long length and sundry explanation and all unnecessary flab are
washed cleanly.
¹«À§(ÙíêÓ) Being Nature 80 x 117cm 2009
ÀÚ¿¬¼ÓÀ¸·Î 02-7 Vers la Nature 90 x 117cm 2002
His current arts world of great epos
in his own unique stream of paintings is the great crystal he made in his
own portrait through numerous changes while he went through while he erected,
collapsed by experiencing challenges and hardship in numerous repetition
during the past half century. He has unspoken rapports with the nature and
is subliming his inspiration sprouting in harmony and poetic senses in his
arts works.
Quoting a paragraph recorded in his records of arts works, 'I like sound
of wind passing through leaves of trees and sound of water flowing in valleys
is also enjoyable.
Friendly chirping sound of unknown mountain birds and sound of grass insects
chirping loud without anyone listening to the sound are anxious and lovely
as well.
ÀÚ¿¬°ú °øÁ¸00-1 Coexistance with nature 61 x 73cm 2000
Mild sound of wind-bells barely
audible appearing from a certain mountain temple in an early dawn and indifferent
sound of a wood block hit by a monk make harmony with the sound generated
from the nature and provide sense of mystery more and more. Which saint
of music can produce this kind of silent, grandiose and impressive sound?
This is the very feature of the nature itself and is a feast of sound of
great epos praising the nature. I put traces of these sound on canvas by
holding a brush without thinking anything in front of such an impressive
shivering of emotion. Since I cannot miss even sound of passing wind...I
may not leave a brush today too.'
This is a lyrical sensual poem made by emotional resonance instead of an
epic made from intellectualism and is also screaming sprouting from the
bottom of the author's heart. The nature as an object is only a mere mean
for catalysis of a great performer. Art world of Yusan Min kyoung kap is
aesthetics of freedom floating in endless time and space. In expression
techniques and methodologies, they are expressed at times in a mode of expressionism
and at times in an art mode of super-conceptualism but ultimate goal he
pursues is realization of humanism.
'Mountain' he used as a motif with pleasure has gone through tremendous
changes in the past 50 years. His arts world started from a trend of materialism
has changed into a style of painting in modern feeling of abstract expressionism
and again changed into imagination with compositional elements. To speak
in other words, detailed forest or stream, valley or tree and bird, flowers
breezing in wind or cloud in the sky are all erased from his canvas in these
days. So many materials and thins were absorbed and melted in heavy and
unspoken feature and image of mountains and metaphor. As they say, now is
time when his arts have reached a state of the completion. In his canvas,
a trance of mankind and brilliant feasts of the universe are being displayed.
World of profound fantasy and sensibility instead of visual or linguistic
explanation is deployed in splendor.
This is the world of soul the author screams
while gesturing in a tense. When pointing out characteristics of his arts,
metaphysical mystic nuance such as beauty f compression and inner cadence
the mode shows, fantastic division of space of the screen, distribution
of tricksy color points and Korean colors is fully covering the screen.
We reach to a conclusion that simple physical world of phenomena in simple
composition means nothing to him.
In 2002, at exhibition hall of UNESCO Salles Miro in Paris, a planning
exhibition of Min kyoung kap was held. It must be a sensational and a
heroic deed that Korean arts were intensively illuminated through arts
works of Yusan in Paris where it is the Mecca of arts and forms a pivotal
axis of the world culture and arts.
'Into the nature (Vers la Nature)' set as a main subject of his arts works
provides significant meaning for settling his 50 years of art life. He,
who has formed a unique vein of Yusan paintings in Korean painting world
while manipulating his unique modeling language, is a representative painter
and a living witness who has compiled Korea arts.
¹«À§(ÙíêÓ) 09-19 Being Nature 46 x 53cm 2009
This Paris exhibition opened a new
horizon in main subject and spirit of the arts works, methods and techniques
of expression and also became a big horizon in civilian dimension to broadly
publicize essence of Korean arts to the world market.In addition, it also
provides a monumental meaning to conclude his half century of arts works
in an advanced country. If we conveniently divide periods of changes of
his arts works into four periods, the first period can beclassified as ¡®Harmony
with the nature,¡¯ the second period as ¡®Co-existence with the nature,¡¯ the
third period as ¡®Into the world of the nature,¡¯ and the recent fourth period
as ¡®The nature without action.¡¯ In particular, the arts works during the
fourth period which conclude the arts mode of Yusan Min kyoung kap arts
seems like containing philosophy and spiritualism he pursues the nature
of Korea in a capsule. For examples, division of space of screen focusing
on preferences of white color, emergence of shapes of enchanting wishing
religion, or delineation of shrine of dead souls in metaphor, and the facts
that he also creates another great nature the author wants to achieve through
maximum compression and reduction of touches of brushes of his modelling
language attract our attention fully.
Next, I introduce a part of statements of an art critic, Shin hang seob
in here. ¡®His dyes made using natural materials provide colors with high
level of purity. Can we find such a beautiful transparent color in other's
arts works? Any color of black, red,
blue, green and etc is clean and transparent
as we can see inside fully and color itself not only provides visual pleasure
but also makes us feel the purification of our emotion. We are caught in
feeling that our visual sights become clear only by facing his arts works.
Color image and emotion like these colors are one of persuasion his arts
works have.
- Omit middle part -
Also, ¡®as things symbolizing images of the nature, there are materials such
as mountain, pine tree, or non-specific number of trees, bamboo, rock, apricot,
wite lots, pieces of textile, Buddha statue, and etc and these do not simply
appear as elements of composition. It praises beauty of the nature and also
contain meaning of symbolism. Moreover, all of these are merged into one
of the natural beauty while they are transformed into forms of compositional
simple contour lines or plane colors.
Material motif adopted from the nature takes a majority but these motif
do not simply sacrifice for the beauty of the nature. It plays a function
to melt the natural ideology or philosophy of life dominating life of oriental
people in pictures. Spiritual world controlling traditional life such as
YIN & YANG ideology, Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism including indigenous
religions is used as tools in implications and metaphor. These materials
play a role to change any heavy subject into very nimble beauty. Contents
and emotion of paintings are changed according to how shapes and colors
of materials are interpreted actually.
ÀÚ¿¬¼ÓÀ¸·Î 02-17 Vers la Nature 197 x 423cm 2002
ÀÚ¿¬¼ÓÀ¸·Î 01-1 Vers la Nature 61 x 73cm 2001
His arts works have been changed
through several processes and the first was harmony with the nature, the
second was co-existence with the nature, the third was into the nature,
and the fourth was the nature without action. The concept of ¡®no action¡¯
he recently has adopted as a main subject is not an image vacating existence
of people but it means ¡®the pure natural status itself.¡¯ It is intended
to see original form of the natural beauty or true essence without any residual
of feeling or consciousness or even shades of them. Of course, the purity
is together with modeling sophistication beauty filtered by its own aesthetic
senses and consciousness of beauty. If we assume the original feature of
the nature without any stain, perhaps, we can imagine the status of ¡®no
action.¡¯ Under such a presumption, screens are treated more in simplicity
than before.
It is because pure beauty of the nature can
be imagine more clearly in a visual aspect by reducing explanatory elements.
A series of works of ¡®no action¡¯ pursues purity of modeling by eliminating
all techniques. So, shapes are compressed as possible as can and conclusion
is drawn out in implicative images. Of course, in here, images of motif
play a role of function as symbolic language.
Images of motif compressed symbolizing oriental ideology and philosophy
of living are simplified to the maximum like a map or sign and they become
to have symbolic language system. And those symbolic languages, that is,
simplified motif serve the purity of the nature and modeling with pleasure.
By sacrificing unique realistic beauty of shapes, they are merged into the
world of ¡®no action¡¯ he presides as a member.
His world of modeling arrived through
¡®no action¡¯ has a strong purification function washing off polluted eyes
and hearts of us. And it shows that pure beauty extracted from the great
nature is converted into extremely transparent color images. Those transparent
color images expose vividly shining actual figures of life, which can be
essence of the great nature filtered by his consciousness of beauty. He
presents us with gift to be infected to shining beauty of life. It is so.
We have no alternative but to be bewildered by the pure beauty.¡¯ This is
pointing out of the bull's-eye.
Conclusion
Arts world of Yusan Min kyoung kap forms his own unique mode of mode of
arts and stream of paintings pursuing the nature of Korea.
Personalism and language he delivers are produced in a mode of expressionism
through his aesthetic beauty of spiritual experiencing.
His unique arts world leaving only necessary essence by eliminating numerous
explanatory stories in compression and in reduction of number of touches
of brush has lots of
possibility to share sympathy with the world
arts modes and to co-exist. His arts trained and polished based on the
traditional nature of Korea contain possibility to be merged into the
world order. We look forward to that day.
ÀÚ¿¬°úÀÇ Á¶È 89-2 Harmony with Nature 130 x 163cm 1989
ÀÚ¿¬°úÀÇ Á¶È 89-1 Harmony with Nature 130 x 163cm 1999
• 1957 Graduated from College of Arts, Seoul National University
• 1969 Invitation to Saao Paulo Biennale
• 1979 Individual exhibition of invitation by Hyundai Gallery
• 1986 Situation Exhibition of Modern Korean Arts (Asian Games Organization
Committee)
• 1988 Invitation to 88 world modern arts festival (National MOMA)
• 1995 Invitation to '95 Korea Arts Quality & Quantity Exhibition
(National MOMA )
• 2002 Commemoration exhibition for opening Seoul City Museum of
Arts
<Light and color of Korean people> invitation
• 2002 UNESCO invitation individual exhibition in Paris, France
• 2002 Japan Korea modern arts exhibition in commemoration of the
year of national exchanges between
Korea and Japan (Yokohama, Japan)
• 2004 Min Kyoung kab Exhibition - Individual exhibition of invitation
to Japanese Arts World (Tokyo, Japan)
• 2005 Korea, Japan Modern Art Exhibition (Hukuoka, Japan)
• 2007 Korea, Japan Modern Art Exhibition (Tokyo, Japan)
• 2008 Korea, China Modern Art Exhibition (Beijing, China)
• 1972 Invitation author of Arts Exhibition of the Republic of Korea
• 1974~1979 Examination member of Arts Exhibition of the Republic
of Korea
• 1988 Examination member of the Central Grand Exhibition of Arts
• 1988 Operation member of arts committee of 88 Seoul Olympic
• 1988~1989 Arts member of arts committee of Seoul Special City
• 1988~1989 Advisory member of city affairs of Seoul Special City
• 1998 Age Retirement as a professor of arts college of Wongang
University
• 2000 Selected as a member of Arts Institute of the Republic of
Korea
• 2004 Advisory member in the year of friendship between Korea and
Japan
(Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade)
• 2005 The first chairman of operation committee of Arts Bank (Ministry
of Culture & Tourism)
• 2005 Chairman of examination committee in non-composition part
of Grand Arts Exhibition
of the Republic of Korea
• 2005 Member of Organization Committee of main countries of Spain
Arco
• 2006 Chairman of operation committee of Organization Committee
of Danwon Arts Festival
• 1996 Received award of culture & art of the Republic of Korea
• 2001 Received award of culture of Seoul special city
• 2002 Received Silver Cultural Decoration of the Republic of Korea
• 2004 Received award of Art Institute of the Republic of Korea
• 2007 Received Grand Prix of proud Koreans
• 2009 Received 5.16 national award
• At present : Member of the national Accademy of Art Republic of
Korea