Fascination with
Letters and Books

Painter Kwon looks for the magical moment when a letter looks bigger than others in books

Painter Kwon Soon-ik has a peculiar artistic world of his own. He tries to express language and the acts of reading books in forms and shapes on his canvases. He used to say that all he does is to put down on the canvases the images of letters in the books he reads that are created in his mind, along with his own sensitivities and colors.
He feels that his travels through Africa and Spain have been of great help in terms of the selection of colors and forms as it made it possible for him to interpret them in diverse ways.
The painter said his work, displayed in a June 4-17 exhibition in Baiksong Gallery in Jongno, downtown Seoul, would shed light on his enlightened artistic endeavor. His paintings appear to have captured soft dust blowing in the wind with barely visible forms and images. They appear to be simple forms made by themselves, as natural as they look, without human influence, and dance together and free.
On the canvases, one can see hills and birds. In fact, everything seems so natural, whether it is human or animal, breathing quietly as if they were part of natural orders.
They look as if the forms were made in a wide-open land of sand so soft that the viewers can feel the warmth on their skin with each object on the canvases, with an individual taste that can move people's minds.
Kwon started to change his subjects: he tries to put the shapes of letters in books and their contents on his canvases and have them reflected on the inside of his mind. It is an interesting work to shape the stories in books in forms on his canvases. It is quite a job to make stories in the books and letters look like objects in paintings. It is not easy to have letters and stories in the books appear as objects in paintings.
Kwon's work takes shape in a dead-end space and makes the viewers feel the potential of the painter's powerful imagination.
Kwon said, "When I read books, I find a letter looking bigger than others sometimes.
Maybe I get involved sometimes to find the magical moment in painting." nw

Reading-Sea: 162.2 x 130.3 cm:Mixed material; 2008

Read-Song:162.2 x 130.3 cm: Mixed material:2008

Read-Shadow;72.7 x 60.6 cm; Mixed material:2008