Artist Min Kyoung-Kap Portrays Inner Beauties of Nature
- His work included both concrete figures and color field forms


Min Kyoung-Kap's paintings look as though they are reflections of fireflies silhouetted against Korean traditional papers, full of colors. They are lively bright lights with full of life amid whimsical sounds of fading movements. Perhaps, its like the colorless earth getting lights rotating itself, with each color having no patterns on its surface generates its own life? The current attraction of colors have been there since the early stages. In the 1950s, the painter accepted external matters(nature) with an intellectual view with his brush work had been restrained limited to basics and originality. In the 1960s, the painter picked up a minimalist style with forms repressed so that they will show their shades. Until the end of the '60s, the painter hardened his abstractive expression simple and highly concentrated.
Min focused on life rather than the world of external matters; dynamic spirit of life and its movements from the early stages of career, which has been like a spine in his artistic world.
The painter goes through a change in the '70s. With a mystic sense of coloring, he let the mysterious world of nature show itself in a realistic fashion. Of course, they are realistic sketches of sceneries, but without details, in an overall manner with light touches. This was where painter Min's painting style took its root with a splendid mix of colors.
Min said, "there are many paintings of mountains in my work. Its because I like those mountains, but also its because the powerful spirit of those mountains touch my finger tips with powerful sensation and spread through my entire body. I love nature because of their inner beauties."
From the beginning, he never liked to paint matters as they are, although he understood the eternal life of nature. Therefore, his sense of beauty keeps his artistic expression stay on the course without changes. The color of ink is not just black. It becomes black when all colors are mixed together. Ink already has all kinds of colors. It is like water, which becomes rain and then becomes water again. It has all colors so much so that it can be said to be the code that leads to all truths. From the 1980s and to the end of the 1990s, a period the painter indulged in nature, the symbolic role of ink emerged. Pure colors emerged unlike in paintings before deepening the depth of canvasses unless controlled by ink with the harmony of soft color tones maturing. This was the period in the painter's career, which began to show his unique painting style.
In the '80s, the painter showed solemn imaginary messages, whereas he began to show paintings of horizontal structures heavy in dark ink giving up a lot of depth and weight to his work. His painting style becomes mixed with half-abstract and non-figurative. In the 1990s, his work began to be bright again, but in the middle of the decade, they turned to bright original colors. He still used traditional painting material, but his traditional blank space on his canvasses was lost and his work began to receive evaluations that they look like Western style forms. But blank space did not disappear but extended to outside canvasses. "What blank space means to me is all the spaces outside my canvasses," he said, adding, "It means nothing to me, leaving a white space on top of a painting."
Min borrowed colors heavily from Korean traditional paintings coming into the mid-90s including even subjects from Korean traditional ink paintings such as plants and animals including birds. However, the mountains remain the same as subjects in his paintings.
"Mountains approach us in fresh and beautiful shapes all the time. But mountains I paint don't have all of those trimmings; They look solid and stubborn," he said. He stressed primary images approaching reality. His character during this time is that he used splendor color more than India ink's black and white significantly He created Westernized formative art with Oriental material. He fills out blank space that is a major character in Oriental painting with expressional images. The aesthetic result of painter Min, which is the result of his admiration for nature, has been changing gradually keeping pace with the times, art critic Kim Yoon-sup said. In the 1950s, the character of his work was that he looked at subjects in terms of intellectual view. The brush strokes in his work was limited remarkably in his paintings during the 1950s. This tendency of avoiding solidity suggested that he tried to approach to essential or fundamental factor.
In the 1960s, abstract feature appeared in his work. The simple expression of the '50s continued as black and white colors. However, simplified forms were destroyed by black and white paint so that it remained being abstract. Work during this time reflected the artist's emotional point of view. He developed abstract forms using simple, concise and intensive expression. In the 1970s, he created realistic landscape paintings. He achieved visual reality with sensitive atmosphere of mystery nature from color rather than detailed description. The 1970s was the growth period for the artist, Kim said.
From 1980s and to the late 1990s, finally, he indulged in nature that is most important subject matter of his recent work. His paintings of nature purifies human being's spirit and shows truth. Obscure color and figures appeared during the first half of the 1980s as if he glanced at the abstract world. The depth of the scene became deeper through silent meditation. In the late 1980s, the artist took interest in flat folk painting. His work included both concrete figures and color field forms. In the early 1990s, his work became brighter and, finally splendor color.
Artist Min graduated from Seoul National University College of Fine Art in 1957. He was invited to Sao Paulo Biennale in 1969; He was juror and guest artist for Korean national Art Exhibition from 1972 to 1979; He held an invitational solo exhibition at Hyundai Gallery in 1979; He became a member of steering committee for World Contemporary Art Festival commemorating 1988 Seoul Olympics in 1988; '95 Korean Contemporary Art(Nat'l Museum of Contemporary Art); Awarded the Nat'l Prize of Culture and Art( by Korean government) in 1996;Retirement from professor of Wonkwang University in 1998; Awarded Guest Artist Prize of Seoul Int'l Art Fair 'Manif 05!99'; Member of Advisory Steering Committee for the Gallery of the Korea Culture and Arts Foundation in 2000;Invited to an exhibition commemorating the opening of Seoul Municipal Gallery(Light and Color of Koreans) in 2002; Invitational solo Exhibition at UNESCO in Paris, France(2002); Invited to the Exchange Exhibition of Korea and Japan(Seoul & Yokohama) in 2002; Awarded the Nat'l Academy of Art prize in 2004;Manif 10!04 Master Artist of Seoul International Art Fair in 2004.
He currently is a member of the National Academy of Art. nw