Spring, summer time, autumn, winter—few issues are extra elementary to how we mark the passage of time. A perennial topic of each informal dialog and art-making, this cycle takes middle stage within the exhibition “Kim Chong Hak: Painter of Seoraksan” at Atlanta’s Excessive Museum of Artwork. On the floor, it seems as a easy journey via the calendar, but beneath lies one thing extra—the fusion of Korean Dansaekhwa portray and American summary expressionism. Through the use of a well-known narrative whereas filtering it via a hybrid model rooted in lived expertise, Hak demonstrates that which means lies much less in what you say than in the way you say it.
Hak was born in Korea, the place he grew up and started his inventive profession. Coming of age within the Nineteen Sixties meant grappling with identification and nationhood in a post-war panorama, struggles that formed the motion often called Dansaekhwa. This summary, non-objective follow, although not wholly consultant of Hak’s influences, dominated Korean portray on the time and offers essential context for his growth.
Dansaekhwa, usually translated as “monochrome portray,” is outlined by bodily engagement with materials, misleading simplicity, and destabilizing contrasts. Its affect emerges most clearly in Hak’s winter works. Untitled (Winter) (2017) depicts a forest stripped of its foliage, the bottom blanketed in snow. Solely naked trunks and branches stay, save for 2 birds perched on a department within the foreground. At first look, the canvas appears almost all white, however nearer inspection reveals a spectrum of grays—from ash to slate—layered into the floor. Thick slabs of paint have been constructed up and sculpted with a brush, giving the scene a dense materiality. Step again once more and the panorama now not seems void however alive with presence. What appears at first a quiet winter scene turns into as an alternative a meditation on Dansaekhwa’s affect on Hak’s model.
In 1977, Hak moved to New York, the place he encountered neo-expressionists equivalent to Julian Schnabel and Anselm Kiefer, together with the legacy of Summary Expressionism. Characterised by intuitive mark-making and non-objective compositions that cowl the canvas edge to edge—so-called “all-over work”—this motion was embodied by figures like Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline. Its influence is clearest in Hak’s summer time work. Inexperienced Shades and Aromatic Vegetation (1998) presents a mattress of flowers—sunflowers, peonies, lilies—all bursting upward from an emerald floor to fill the floor with out pause. Whereas recognizably a summer time scene with its dense greenery and saturated hues, the dearth of horizon or pictorial depth flattens the canvas right into a single, enveloping aircraft. As with Untitled (Winter), the true topic is just not the picture itself however Hak’s painterly follow.
What’s most hanging is how approachable these works stay. The collision of Dansaekhwa’s rigor with Summary Expressionism’s abandon might need produced chaotic, unruly canvases. As a substitute, Hak distills these competing forces into the straightforward body of the seasons. Although the stylistic influences are distinct, they by no means overwhelm; stability and readability prevail. The exhibition provides a twin entry level: first, the comforting familiarity of seasonal change, and second, the conceptual interaction of types. One could view it as a lyrical stroll via the yr, however these works resist categorization. They aren’t typical landscapes however one thing much more compelling.
“Kim Chong Hak: Painter of Seoraksan” is on the Excessive Museum of Artwork via November 2, 2025.
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