The more you look at Kim Heung-gyu’s paintings, the more unsettling you become.
But the devil is literally in the details.
Imprisoned catfish, sword-wielding dogs, and armed rodents engage in acts of violence, malice, and mischief, with grimacing faces, bloodshot yellow eyes, and sometimes rotting facial features. At once amusing and grotesque, Kim puts a contemporary twist on a historical painting style that Kim has mastered over almost a decade.
One of Kim’s new paintings, Too Cool for Shopping, depicts a chaotic shopping mall. credit: Kim Hung Gyu/High Art
The 36-year-old is typically based in East London, working up to 10 hours a day, seven days a week, on intricate art. But before leaving his home country seven years ago to study at the Royal College of Art in England, he received a traditional, highly technical education in the Oriental Painting Program at Seoul National University. The course required painstaking recreations of centuries of Asian masterpieces and brush techniques.
“My teacher was very strict. He didn’t want me to experiment,” recalls Kim. “They really wanted me to follow their orders because it was closer to the belief (system) or strict structure they wanted to pass on to the next generation.”
When I was in school, I was particularly fascinated by the silk paintings of the Goryeo Dynasty, when Buddhism flourished on the Korean Peninsula. Like the Buddhist scrolls that inspired him, his own detailed works are rendered in fine, delicate lines using rich organic pigments. Trace images from your sketches, then bring them to life with a small paintbrush.
Along the way, Kim brings historical art forms into the modern age, naming inspirations ranging from Dutch Renaissance painter Hieronymus Bosch to Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki. (“I was part of an anime-influenced generation,” Kim said, referring to South Korea’s long-standing ban on Japanese anime in the late 1990s.)
I create works around basic themes such as places and types of animals, and imagine and draw small stories that exist independently. But instead of depicting religious stories like his ancient ancestors, his microcosm world is steeped in satire.
“Drowning” is one of about a dozen of Kim’s paintings exhibited at the recent Freese Seoul Art Fair. credit: Kim Hung Gyu/High Art
In “Fitting Room N.7”, the animal police stalk a dressing room with a hairless rabbit. One of them appears to be his, skinned and fur hanging on a nearby hook. “Too Cool for Shopping” depicts a lawless shopping mall where sword fights on escalators and hordes of insects are repelled by cannons. On the other hand, “Empty Paintings of the Broken Hearted” is shaped like a maze-like art fair (just like this painting was hung), and the partition wall and the picture frame are separate, but It acts as a portal to a chaotic world as well.
an evolving perspective
These new paintings (the most expensive sold for around $60,000) are probably Kim’s most intricate to date. Like the Impossible Penrose Stairs — the paradoxical illusion of an ever-climbing staircase — his art increasingly plays with the viewer’s perspective. Existing on multiple planes at once, Kim’s worlds fold onto each other to unsettling effect. The titles of the three paintings he made for Freeze Soul include the word ‘unpleasant’.
But the painter, who has commented on current affairs before, says his new work is free of political elements from his early career.
“I thought art and politics were one and the same, and that showing my work would allow me to talk about political issues.” , and destroys the beginning and end (in every sense of the word).
“I don’t think I’m offering any kind of lesson through my paintings,” he added.
“Unpleasant Artist Residency” creates a sense of perspective for the viewer. credit: Kim Hung Gyu/High Art
His ways have changed, too. What was once a meticulously planned painting process is increasingly improvised, with painters sometimes starting in the middle of the painting and working outward.
However, the result is less complicated. Also, Kim’s work may be more receptive to South Korean audiences, where talking about political issues is still “seen as a sort of taboo.”
On the eve of his presentation at Freeze Soul, presenting his work for the first time in his country, he expressed uncertainty about how his art would be received by his compatriots.
“There are slight differences between the British audience and the Korean audience, but I think they will meet at the same point in the end.”