[비즈한국] The ‘2025 Korea Art Support Project Exhibition’ will be held from March 12 to 17 at the Insa Art Center in Jongno-gu, Seoul. This exhibition, marking the conclusion of season 10 of the artist support initiative ‘Korea Art Support Project,’ features works by 19 artists. What thoughts have these artists poured into their work? Prior to the exhibition, we take a look at the works through two installments of a virtual gallery. ‘Virtual Gallery 1’ sheds light on the artistic worlds of nine artists: Kim Ki-seop, Han Saem, Min Woo-gi, Kim Gro, Park Jong-hwa, Song In-hyuk, Kim Yeon, Kim Yeon-ju, and Kim Ji-sook.
We are living through times marked by contradiction, absurdity, irrationality, and foul play. In a reality where the subversion of common sense has become the norm, artists are capturing this era in their own ways. The question is: in what manner should one respond to reality?
In art, expressing reality primarily through messages is considered the lowest form of craft. Art cannot convey a message as accurately or influentially as a TV current affairs program or news. That is why art that puts ideology at the forefront has always failed. The reason why the ideology-biased art movement that was popular in the Korean art scene during the 1980s remained merely a ‘historical event’ and failed to sublimate into ‘fine art’ is that it expressed social reality through direct, blunt messages.
MZ generation artists, who value fairness and rationality, are approaching this reality using their own unique languages. Artists Kim Ki-seop, Han Saem, Min Woo-gi, Kim Gro, Park Jong-hwa, Song In-hyuk, Kim Yeon, Kim Yeon-ju, and Kim Ji-sook represent this trend.
Kim Ki-seop, who creates landscapes with an absurd atmosphere by combining lyrical scenery with whimsical animals, expresses the loneliness one must endure within a skewed reality. Han Saem, who paints fantastical landscapes using a similar grammar, speaks indirectly about the realistic contradictions and absurdities that seep into our daily lives.
Min Woo-gi, who also creates a peaceful yet unfamiliar everyday atmosphere through a combination of animals and landscapes, views the absurd social reality that invades daily life with an anxious gaze.
Kim Gro, who finds a painterly language in autobiographical stories, uses fairytale character motifs to show the two faces of happiness, embodying a will to reflect on social contradictions.
Park Jong-hwa and Song In-hyuk approach their paintings in the same vein. They choose to stage their daily lives as stories within extraordinary spaces. Park Jong-hwa uses spaces reminiscent of scenes from a movie, while Song In-hyuk expresses the circus as the stage of life on his canvas. Within these spaces, they humorously express an absurd reality controlled by massive, unseen forces.
Artists who approach the problems of reality and the individual from a slightly different perspective are Kim Yeon, Kim Yeon-ju, and Kim Ji-sook. Their attitude is to find answers in the small joys of daily life despite living in an irrational reality.
Kim Yeon, who paints monochromatic landscapes centered on ink wash, is gaining attention for her minimalist expression in an era of expressive excess. Through paintings that offer a comforting pause in a reality as fierce as war, she overcomes a restless daily life.
Kim Yeon-ju, who satirizes reality through pets, showcases the positive sensibility of the younger generation.
Kim Ji-sook, who constructs her canvases by overlapping the longings of her childhood with her current life, seeks to overcome realistic contradictions through the power and beauty of traditional colors.