You are here

Kwun Sun Cheol 권 순 철 - Face

Country:

City:

Categories:

How many artists: 
1

How many exhibition works:

Date: 
Wednesday, 1 May 2019 to Wednesday, 31 July 2019

Kwun Sun-Cheol, one of the most renowned Korean contemporary artists, was born in 1944 in Chan-Won, South Korea. In 1989 he moved to Paris, where he is now living and working. Specially famous are his big-sized depictions of human faces.  His paintings move in a line between figuration and abstraction and his oeuvre encompasses  landscapes, portraits – amongst them some selfportraits – as well as surreal depictions he calls „souls“.

Kwun’s landscapes are void of people as well as of vegetation, which – when it appears – is shown in the distance, black and winterly. He paints landscapes in a spectrum reaching from smooth, dispersed brushstrokes to concentrated clusters of paint. While the former convey the hazyness, coolness and atmospheric side of landscape, the latter are used for an exploration of surfaces of stony mountains and of rough earth. The themes of stone, earth and sea have something primordial and eternal about them. Some of his townscapes take up the chromaticity and mood of Camille Pissarro’s paintings of Paris.

Also in his portraits there is a tension between smooth and rough brushstrokes, between surface and depth. Some portraits almost resemble sculptures by superposing so many layers. But the energy and tension of the brushstrokes disperse to show faces which are in the end only a shine and an outward shell. The brushstrokes don’t form a firm body, they dissolve as if they were just a description of the ephemeral eye’s movement; the crisscrossing and concentration of their lines form a topographic relief. Kwun doens’t give the expression of the portrayed away, he lets them avert their gaze and look inwards. He depicts the young with their smooth skin, but much more often the old and wrinkled, marked by life and time. The individuality of his faces seems a hazard, which the painter wants to get on the track of by making physiognomical studies, but in the end depicting human condition itself. Finally his paintings are not portraits in the conventional manner.

His sources for the portraits are taken from sketches done on the streets, or come from paintings and photos in magazines. Kwun is a passionate draughtsman, and specially in this area he has a freedom of expression which lets his portrayed resemble to mere phantasies. Daphné Le Sergent sees them as reaching back into time, as a far-off memory. A typical melancholical feeling impregnates in her opinion his work, still resulting from the effects of the Korean War (1950-53).

Kwun’s colours by their superlayering and mixing form a palette of greys, but yellow, blue and red flare up, colours resembling miniature and glass painting. Kwun’s search of a spirituality in art shows most clearly in his „souls“, paintings showing mystical light apparitions, fallen souls and crucified figures. It is here that he most clearly states the focal point of his art.

 

by Verena Alves-Richter

Curator :

Artist ( Description ): 

South Korean master painter living in Paris and Seoul

Venue ( Address ): 

galerie son

Schinkelplatz 4

10117 Berlin

Germany

galerie son , Berlin

Other events from galerie son

view
DEUTSCHE SCHULE / GERMAN SCHOOL
05/19/2020 to 07/15/2020
view
Jungeun Oh - Zwischenräume | Interspaces
10/15/2019 to 01/25/2020
view
Kwun Sun Cheol 권 순 철 - Face
05/01/2019 to 07/31/2019
view
SYNTHESIS II - Annette Sellerbeck
11/18/2018 to 12/22/2018

Pages

 

Related Shows This Week

view
Art Share L.A. Open Studios - Ellsworth Artist Residency Program
03/30/2024
view
„APA- interferențe culturale”
03/20/2024 to 05/20/2024
view
Mike Olin Paintings
02/16/2024 to 04/14/2024
view
Masakatsu Sashie: "Still"
03/16/2024 to 04/13/2024
view
Miracle Island - Paintings by KK Kozik
03/30/2024 to 05/12/2024
view
Aspects of Appearance: Portraits from the Collection in Context
02/25/2024 to 06/30/2024
view
Oldies and Goodies
03/07/2024 to 04/08/2024
view
BEYOND THE STREETS & CONTROL GALLERY PRESENT GRAFFITI ARCHIVE 1972/73: AN EXHIBITION OF PHOTOGRAPHS FROM GORDON MATTA-CLARK
03/01/2024 to 04/13/2024

Pages