Kwon YoungWoo, Untitled

Kwon YoungWoo (1926-2013)
Unititled
Ink and gouache on Korean paper
65 x 53.5 cm

Korean painter Kwon YoungWoo’s career was marked by a personal quest to bring new forms of abstraction into Korean painting. His was the first abstract work to be released at Korea’s 11th National Exhibition in 1962, sending a fresh shock wave through Korea’s painting establishment and marking the beginning of a new form of Korean painting. Later, Kwon was selected as the principal Korean artist to exhibit at the 1973 São Paulo Art Biennale, marking the beginning of his rise and broadening appeal through the global art world. This was followed in 1975 with his participation as one of the main artists at the Tokyo exhibition, “Five Korean Artists, Five Shades of White,” where he exhibited alongside Park Seobo, Lee Dong Youb, Huh Hwang, and Suh Seung Won, elevating Kwon as a principal artist of Korea’s monochrome (dansaekhwa) movement.

Kwon’s 1974 selection for the 24th national invitational artist prize saw him move to Paris, leading to his invitation to exhibit with Galérie Jacques Massol in Paris in 1976. This exhibition furthered the artist’s reach in the European Art World. French paper “Le Figaro” wrote of the exhibition, “Sophisticated and original, imbued with refined ideas - the artist’s dazzling whites and shade create the double sense of both light and abyss.”

In Paris, Kwon continued to develop and evolve his work in new and diverse directions. His work up until that point having focussed on the purity of whites and shades, he began from 1977 onward to break new ground, experimenting with bold new techniques as he ripped or punctured paper and then applied ink or gouache, seeking to achieve effects through the very nature of the materials themselves. Kwon’s works from this period typically employed a blue-grey hue. They capture a certain tension caused by the ink penetrating into the paper. The folds and layering of the paper, the glue binding the pieces together, the method of applying the ink - these would all give rise to interesting and subtle changes, different interactions of ink and paper, creating a diversity of forms and expression for the artist.