The Conversion of Code towards New Creation 

of by Hyoungsik Kim 

 - Concerning  Minimalist Monochrome Colorfield Paintingl -

 Kim, Jae-Kwon 

(Ph, D in formative / Art aesthetics)

  Up to now Hyoungsik Kim has painted concrete pictures taking nature as subject matters. This exhibition, however, shows monochrome colorfield works totally different form the previous ones. So to speak, to Hyoungsik Kim, this exhibtion gives a turning point, which shows the conversion of the code to his works.

  His elaborate concrete works of nature Hyoungsik Kim has made can be said to play a motive role to reflect on his existence. In other words he got to create monochrome colorfield paintings by figuring out the principle of nature through concrete works in his own way and applying to the new ones. In fact his painting [Existence-Contemplation GR709] is covered with green color on the background with white and red horizontal lines 5centimeters wide and 20centimeters long on the left lower part, which is an abstract landscape representing his usual painting 'a valley of a deep mountain with a small cascade'. 

  In summer enter the deep valley in a mountain! All that is seen is green color. If the brilliantly running water is expressed as a simple form and color, there might be no other way except for this one. Like this, his art works in this exhibition are the ones as <a method of contemplation toward nature>.

  Accordingly his canvas has a structured space with horizontal and vertical lines in red, green, crimson, black, violet of monochrome colorfield, and shows extremely small space in round or rectangular shapes with added color band accent of minimalist colorfield. In order to do this, he used the medium(Gel-Stone) to make matiere in horizontal or vertical directions on the canvas as a stonemason cuts stone with knives, and then used mono colored acrylics to make bold rectangular colorfield with an another accent color on a appropriate part.

  As a result the images in the space of the works reveal the spiritual meditation world associated with 'nature itself remained intact' of the theory of lao zhuàng.

  All the same some say that these works of his belong to the geometrical abstract taking on Hard-edge tendency which rose in late 50's centering America. But Hyoungsik Kim's colorfield painting is different from that.  As it were, as the name says, while Hard-edge has a trait that the division of things and space is clear as the geometrical forms are trimmed with sharp knife, Hyoungsik Kim's geometrical forms are arranged to try to harmony the empty space with filled space by naturally spreading the color and forms just like using the color of Korean ink stick. The colorfield of Hard-edge also has a certain degree of chroma and brightness as color paper is applied, on the other hand, Hyoungsik Kim's has spreading lines or slight blank space. Besides one more difference is that, in the color aesthetics, while western monochrome paintings represent the desire to lead the artist's spiritual world to limited situation, his monochrome works as a color of an insight into nature.<abridged>         -in the 5th solo exhibition-    

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