KIM Dong Wook

Installation view of ‘People’ at Gallery Doll

KIM Dong Wook has drawn scenes within the category of showing this characteristic of painting. It is observed, but soon, as a direction that goes to and from the boundary of abstraction, a layer of paint on the reproduction harmonizes like a fragment, showing an interesting shape. It holds the images that are ordinary and can be passed inadvertently like a moment. A character appears, but these are forms expressed in the harmony of the whole without detailed description. People who busily cross the street, meet with someone, and enjoy their time at a cafe appear in pictures.

Installation view of ‘People’ at Gallery Doll

Although the fact is revealed, the artist has sincerely pursued representation until the things that add or subtract shapes fit at some point and become a picture, but as an artist, he finds another with the artistic beliefs he pursues. The landscapes that become scenes with people and places observed while moving to the city were clear materials for the artist and were good for capturing the ever-changing flow. Recent work is gradually narrowing the distance within paintings with the sensibility of strangers that we feel as a distance between us and others.

KIM Dong Wook, People – On A Sunny Day, 53×40.9cm, oil on canvas, 2023 2024 retouch

As if trying to capture things that an individual cannot approach inside, the work gradually breaks the shape in realistic description and draws paint to approach abstraction. To return quickly on the premise of anonymity required by the present era is to find out and find something else. When the artist narrows his distance to painting, it is similar to expressing his grievances in the way he lives with others as a person living in the world. There is nothing accurate. The key is how the artist’s day changes as he becomes emotional. However, the artist’s attitude is cautious. Now, inside of the space, he looks carefully at something. Sometimes the completion of retouching while checking the previous work is bound to continue. The emotional approach seems more painterly in terms of the personality of meeting in harmony rather than description, but the artist’s thoughtful desire should not be forgotten that the division of lines and the symbols hidden in serious colors.

KIM Dong Wook, People – A Narcissist, 40×72.7cm, oil on canvas, 2024

Due to the nature of the city as a symbol of modernization, external characteristics such as capitalism have disappeared when they meet human desires. Considering that the flow that reappears has become the culture of the present, our life is bound to be different from the base of life of those who have passed. The characters found in his work and the way of life appear and become a picture without his knowledge. As Wittgenstein said, ‘The imagination of language is imagining the form of life.’ Painting is also a part of life. The scientific proof that the present era is looking for seems to be no longer uncomfortable for individuals, but mysterious emotions from reality naturally took shape as artistic materials. The desire to show reality by expanding abstraction as an ideological attitude of painting, which started from the sensitivity of a personal artist, is poured on the screen and thought, becoming a picture. Fragmentary aesthetics exist in an attempt to ask ambiguous questions.

Gallery Doll
87 Samcheongro, Jongrogu, Seoul
+82 2 739 1405, 6

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