Kim Kyung-rae

Kim Kyung-rae's Painting
A Deep and Profound Landscape seen with Inward Eyes
                          

  Kho, Chung-Hwan/ art critic

There is a painting visible with our eyes closed. Usually, it is an afterimage of the scene we saw before we close our eyes, but shortly soon after, it would be followed endlessly by some unknown paintings we can neither know about their substance nor guess their depth. In other words, they seem to be some profound paintings that are deep and shallow alternately rather than continuous like a panorama. They look like the dim flames floating still in the dark or the firecrackers exploded nearby or from afar, or the fires spat by an exploded volcano, or the mountain chain piled up, or the craters of the moon or such planes as the Mars, or sometimes a pretty specific and fantastic scene such as the deep sea gushing up the tiny water drops together with the blurred rays of light flowing in between colorful seaweeds and sea lifes. The painting can only be described by means of the subjunctive mood 'as if it were,' and therefore, it can hardly be captured as some fixed form. Sometimes, it reminds us of a remote street like an air map, and at other times, it is reminiscent of some indeterminate, suggestive form that varies every hour or minute. Hence, the painting will disappear before our eyes unwittingly if we are lost in any miscellaneous thought. Therefore, we should concentrate on the painting if we don't want to miss it. Or, we should follow it still with even our nerve off, unconsciously letting it flow or vary.
What is the substance of this painting that is usually abstract and often specific? As mentioned above, it is an afterimage of what we have seen, namely an afterimage of a substance (corresponding to the lingering imagery in the sound). However, what is the continuing painting following the short afterimage endlessly? The painting is what each 'I' made. So, it is correct to say that it went over from 'me.' It was evoked by my mind, my desire and my thought. Merely, what was evoked has been clad with forms and colors.
As it is, Kim Kyung-rae draws the profound and internal landscape. He draws the images described by mind, desire and thought. However, the images have neither fixed forms nor determinate colors, indeed. So, his painting is a fixed form actually, but it looks like moving endlessly, being clad with some determinate colors. In fact, it seems to accommodate the spectrum of various heterogeneous colors. The feeling that it seems to move and harbor different colors will be vivid when it is seen nearby rather than from afar and at the same time when it is seen with eyes of thought or mind, namely deep eyes. I mean it will be seen if you see it with a sympathizing or open mind. The artist's painting visible with your eyes closed means that he draws the pictures he saw with his deep eyes. Seeing the painting with your eyes closed or the painting visible with your eyes closed means you see it with your deep eyes, doesn't it? However, how can the artist capture the image with no fixed form or determinate color and flowing and varying continuously and thereby, paint it? Here, the image visible with your eyes closed can only play a role of minimum clue. In the process of capturing the image and painting it, other occasions conscious or unconscious intervene, and thus, the image varies and changes. For example, a formative occasion (namely, a learned formal logic) may intervene, or a representative occasion (namely, an occasion reminiscent of some landscape) may intervene.
Summing up, the artist's painting is about a scene he saw with his profound eyes, and at the same time, an internal landscape projected by his mind, desire and thought both sensibly and non-sensibly, and a profound landscape. The fire captured over the landscape is a signifier of pathos, while the dark blue deep sea is a signifier of ethos. As it is, the artist's painting depicts the view, scene and landscape of mind flowing between pathos and ethos. Pathos and ethos? Here, pathos may be an energy oxidizing uncontrollably and rapidly, while ethos may be an energy flowing coldly and slowly. Can we see the painting as the one depicting a dramatic event occurring in the mind where Yin and Yang energies rise and fall (or a deeper place than the mind or some basic place)? Here, the artist's painting seems to depict the mobility of the energy or its principle. Although it is invisible, it is a kind of energy or a case of the life phenomena. All in all, his painting depict energy and life.
Traditionally in the Asia, the energy of the universe and that of each of us are continuous in the same space. The phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty developed such Asian thought into a concept of the universal flesh. The universe is filled with the flesh (energy, air, anima, etc.,). So, subject and object cannot be distinguished from each other and 'you' and 'I' cannot be different. Here, the Western logic has been expanded (or reduced) to the extent that analysis is no longer possible and that dividing and splitting is no longer feasible. Here, a new perspective is open. Cezanne is inside his painting 'Mt. Saint Victoar, and vice versa. Likewise, I am inside the universe, and vice versa. Therefore, I can become a micro-universe.
To reemphasize, the artist's painting depicts a vision he saw with his profound eyes, and thus, it is a painting depicting energy and life as well as the principle of the genesis of the universe. In fact, his painting has a blurred and equivocal atmosphere with every known forms erased (at the beginning, the God reside in the dark), and the atmosphere evokes some pure energy, and together with the energy, we are urged to stand before a holy chaos at the dramatic moment when the universe was created. And the chaos is printed in every one of us as an original memory. Hence, his painting might be a spiritual one evoking such an original memory.
Again, there is a painting visible with our eyes closed. There is a painting more visible with our eyes closed, and there is a painting visible only with our eyes closed. In the process of depicting the image or the vision into a painting, it undergoes certain changes (in any case, the image cannot be depicted intact). Anyway, it is clear that the image played a role of minimum motive or first occasion. Thus, his painting seems to focus on a conceptual, abstract, mental and spiritual world rather than the sensuous and phenomenal world of materials. Paul Klee says that arts visualize the invisible. Drawing by Kim Kyung-rae who pursues the vision visible with our eyes closed seems to be an expression comparable to Klee's definition about the reason for the being of arts.



Kim  Kyung Rae


1978  Graduated from Hongik University
2009  Graduated from The Master Course in Design Graduate school, Donkook University
2008  8Persons'Exhibition of Artist Studio (Seoul Arts Center)
      Booth Solo Exhibition (Ho Gallery)
      The Best painters'Exhibition of the World
      Open Arts (Seoul Museum of Art)
2009  Solo Exhibition (Gallery Lamer)
2010  International Drawing Exhibition (Seoul Arts Center)
      Solo Exhibition (ABLE FINE ART NY Gallery)
2011  Solo Exhibition (Chosunilbo Gallery)
 Nov. Solo Exhibition (Insa Artsenter)

Year-long Exhibition
Yeongnamilbo Wellbing Center
(Yeongnam Tower B2, Shincheondong, Daegu)
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