Seoul Museum of Art solo show reveals painter's philosophy in art and life
Artist Kang Myong-hi never erases any marks from a canvas, even if she does not like them when she returns the next day. Although it is hard to endure marks on a canvas that look like flaws, she chooses to embrace each brushstroke she makes.
Kang's artworks, currently on exhibition at the Seoul Museum of Art, highlight her unique approach to both art and life.
“Some artists would remove those traces, and it is very tempting to paint over it. But I feel like I have to face the flaws I left yesterday, and be patient about them. That is the life of a painter I think. Painting feels like a dialogue with myself,” Kang said during an interview Thursday at the Seoul Museum of Art.
“Life is the same. When things happen in your life, you cannot solve the problem or forget about it immediately. You keep them in your memory for a while and naturally realize (something) about those things after time,” she said.
Among the 125 paintings of her early to recent works, "Requiem” (2024) depicts Hallasan mountain on Jeju Island. Kang visited it over and over again, layering different features of what she saw from the mountain. This method is why Kang takes months or years to finish a work.
“The more I depict a thing, the more I find it insufficient. I feel like there is no absoluteness,” the artist said.
The 78-year-old artist returned to South Korea in 2007, setting up studios on Jeju Island, after living in France for 35 years. The exhibition “Myonghi Kang — Visit” is her first museum exhibition in Korea since 2006.
Many of her works are depictions of nature she saw in France, Jeju Island, Hong Kong or from her explorations of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, Patagonia in South America or Antarctica.
She refuses to take a binary approach to paintings — as many people divide works into "abstract" or "figurative." “Don’t confine yourself when seeing art,” the artist said.
The layers upon layers in Kang's works invite viewers to discover multiple interpretations.
Some of her works evoke a dreamlike atmosphere with slim brushstrokes of pastel-toned colors, but following the brushstrokes, there are also points at which they build up thickly on the canvas. Her paintings are beautiful and free, but resentment or a stifling feeling can be found, too, depending on how you see it.
“That part can look suffocating or seem like a cliff. I do not know why I do it, but it is like a habit. There should be a fierce intention behind it, but it is hard to explain it. That is probably why I paint (because I can not explain),” she said.
When she first left for France in 1972, Korea was going through rapid industrial development and dictatorship at the same time. It was normal for students to skip class and go to a demonstration against the government, she recalled.
At the entrance to the exhibition is 4.6-meter-tall oil painting "North Garden," completed at her studio in Touraine, France, spanning from 2002 to 2010. The painting is of a small garden near her studio and depicts the plot in every season over many years.
When asked when the heyday of her artistic career has been, Kang did not hesitate to answer, “It is now.”
“I really want to go back to Jeju and start the second series of ‘Requiem.’ The suffocating part of my painting now looks as though it is a mass of happiness,” she said.
The exhibition, divided into three sections, follows Kang’s path with “Living in Seogwangdong-ri,” “Visit” and “Secret Garden.”
“Myonghi Kang — Visit” runs through June 8.
yunapark@heraldcorp.com
