Kwon Kisoo

Under the moon, 2017, Acrylic on canvas on board, 72 x 86cm

Gallery JJ is pleased to present Kwon Kisoo: Across the Universe, a solo exhibition by Kwon Kisoo, renowned for his smiling character Dongguri. Kwon reflects on the ideal relationship between humans and their environment through this emblematic figure. Working primarily in painting while exploring sculpture, installation, and video animation, he expands the possibilities of contemporary art by articulating narratives rooted in traditional Korean painting philosophy through modern sensibilities and methodologies. This exhibition is part of the Discovery of Contemporary Korean Art project curated by Kim Noam, unfolding across eight venues in Seoul, Pangyo, and Paju. As its second installment following another artist, Kwon Yeohyun, the project seeks to broaden appreciation of Korean art by spotlighting mid-career artists pivotal to Korea’s contemporary art scene. It offers a comprehensive look into his artistic vision.

Sky high-reflected sky, 2017, Acrylic on canvas on board, 130 x 130cm

Gallery JJ features nineteen paintings, and six drawings from Kwon’s signature Reflection series, Plantain series, Sky paintings, and two gold-leafed sculptures titled Hi-Universe. The narrative structure allowing viewers to meander through landscapes with Dongguri—a cultural presence for nearly 25 years—echoes traditional landscape painting’s rhetorical space-time. These figures guide us through scenery as inhabitants of an idealized realm: cheerful yet deceptively sardonic, rendered at times with expressive, even anguished brushwork. They embody both archetypal humanity and contemporary persona, reflecting social conformity or existential isolation, perhaps offering solace to the weary modern minds. Viewers can encounter a unique juxtaposition of traditional references conveyed through a distinctly contemporary visual language.

Hi-Universe, 2021, Aluminum and Stainless steel frame and Real Gold leaf, Acrylic and Urethane paint, 40(W) x 13(D) x 55(H) cm

At first glance, the vivid colors and smooth surfaces exhibit a flat pictorial space with laser-precision color fields and economical lines. The works exhibit virtuosity, technical exactitude, and visual opulence, incorporating over 600 acrylic hues composed by the artist. Yet beneath such geometric clarity lies references to the elements in traditional literati and landscape painting; the Four Gentlemen, Three Perfections tradition, bamboo groves, plum blossoms, plantains, small boats, and full moons. While intuitively manifesting the traditional sensibilities absorbed during his Oriental painting trainings, these elements transform into autobiographical narratives and metaphors for contemporary existence. Critics have interpreted his works variously: as pop subversions of Oriental painting conventions (Choi Beom), as meta-literati expressions channeling spiritual values through modern visual grammar (Lee Geonsoo), and as innovative syntheses of Eastern and Western traditions, fine and popular arts by integrating Korean painting heritage within the global artistic currents (Kim Noam).

A Yellow Boat in the Reflected Red Forest, 2023, Acrylic on canvas on board, 72.7 x 60.6cm

His Dongguri typically inhabits utopian, idealized natural environments. Drawing from late Joseon painting, Kwon reimagines paradise by referencing Taoist ideals, the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, Jiang Taigong, and hermitic sanctuaries of Joseon literati—juxtaposing conceptual paradise with lived reality. According to critic Yoo Jinsang, Kwon “proposes alternative modes of pictorial interpretation by reconfiguring locations, figures, and perspectives from canonical Korean painting into symbolic and geometric assemblies.”

Reflection of the Moon-Golden, 2012, Acrylic on canvas on board, 130 x 97cm

Since the late 1990s, Kwon has built his distinctive artistic vision through diverse media experiments while wrestling with ink painting’s tradition and modernization, establishing work grounded in Eastern philosophical traditions. Coincidentally, the character elements prominent in Korean pop art during the 2000s aligned briefly with Dongguri’s image, leading to their conceptual association. His work holds a key position in Korean contemporary art, featured in major domestic and international shows, including Google’s Global Art Project in New York and collected by leading institutions worldwide.

My favorites-Study 2, 2018, Acrylic on canvas on board, 116.7 x 90.9cm

While consistently rooted in tradition, his work can transform into acutely modern expressions. Around 2014, his HouSu 後素 series emerged, works that erase bamboo images, suggesting renewal through removal and voiding. Meanwhile, the vivid bamboo forests in his early work represent traditional utopian spaces like those of the Seven Sages, yet concurrently evoking skyscraper clusters from a modern perspective; similarly, the strange cubic rocks upon which Dongguri sits echo today’s architectural geometries. His gold leaf series deconstructs the symbolic significance of gold as a medium while constructing alternative narratives. The gold leaf—precious yet ephemeral, traversing sacred and mundane realms—functions as a metaphor for life’s inherent duality, perfectly suited for expressing such paradoxes.

Green Table_Gold, 2024-2025, Acrylic on canvas on board, 130.4 x 162.1cm

The recurring title Reflected expounds central aspects of Kwon’s practice. The symmetrically mirrored worlds with circular ripples in his figure backgrounds create abstract spaces where reality confronts virtuality, actualization meets illusion. His work intersects utopian and quotidian realms. The romantic spaces enveloped by plantains concurrently function as politically charged territories; Dongguri’s leisurely boat journey might represent years of hardship; and its precarious tightrope walk could be our image navigating challenging society now. Humans dream of escaping limited time-space constraints. Sometimes we can examine our everyday life through inversion of existing spaces and unfamiliarity. Though an unattainable dream, isn’t the artist paradoxically exploring the ideal world, the world of Ideas, and questioning the possibility of life? Kwon’s work anchors neither in East nor West, tradition nor modernity, reality nor ideal.

Gallery JJ
63 Apgujeong-ro 30-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Korea
+82 2-322-3979

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