Kyungmin Nam’s Paintings - Staying in the Mindscape (2014.11.7-12.19)
Savina Museum of Contemporary Art presents the solo exhibition by Kyungmin Nam
Nam has been reconstructing the great masters’ studios on the canvases with her imaginations. In her previous works, she showed the studios of Western painters like Henri Matisse, David Hockney, and Cezanne. She visited some of the studios, collected information, and added imagination to create works.She has shown the studios filled with objects and paintings of the great masters from different periods and artistic movements such as Renaissance, Impressionism, and Surrealism.
In this exhibition, she is presenting recent works in which she extended the subject matter to the Korean great masters and oriental objects. The detailed depictions of the objects and stillness of composition from the previous works are carried on to the recent works. Nam added Eastern style brushstrokes and palettes from traditional Korean painting. As a result, her new body of works seems to have elements from Korean painting and warmth.
Also, because the objects in the paintings were borrowed from Korean culture, the silent and solitary mood in the previous works was replaced with warm and active traditional Korean colors. The main characteristics of Kyungmin Nam’s painting will be read through a few works in this exhibition: the allegory of the objects, the expression of the sublime, and the double composition of the space.
Critic
The Room of Great Master, The Invitation to the Feast of Metaphors and Senses
"Within the canvas, Nam juxtaposed objects symbolizing the artist herself. Recently, Nam has broadened the spectrum and created a new body of works showing the interior of Korean great master painters’ rooms. She considered both Western and Eastern painters as her mentors across the traditional and contemporary art genres. She has been studying great masters’ works as well as the culture and art history to understand the period and to connect the time between now and then. In this exhibition, Nam presents the strong body of recent works that resulted from the persistent study which led Nam to connect with the masters’ aesthetic world and their personal inner world. Nam brought over the great masters’ emotions and perceptions to the canvas and translated them into Nam’s own time. This transition enabled her to create a number of symbols and metaphors. Like vivid memories the symbols and metaphors seemed dynamic and powerful, and they harmonically coexist in one space. Thus, the audiences can find this detailed and specific situation real."
by Mijin Kim (Professor at Hongik University, Fine Art Department, Planning & Critic)
