Time has passed: as a nostalgic homeland
Bao Guitao (Scholar\Curator)
Jin Kuigang's landscape oil painting creation has a very clear intention. He does not express the rural life as a landscape, but in the way of the landscape, he restores the situation of the countryside, which is not to be viewed as a landscape, but as a local to "live". It is not aesthetic for the sake of "habitability", but to construct context to conceal daily life. In this way, it returns to the original intention of his work. Almost all of Kim Kyu-gang's oil paintings come from or are related to the native North Korea. In the history of contemporary Korean art, no painter has completely taken care of the geomorphological and phenological characteristics of the northern part of the Korean Peninsula like Kim Kyu-gang. Even, you can make any cut on the picture of his landscape oil painting, or re-select the scene and composition on his picture at will, and you will find that there is no problem. His landscape paintings are human fireworks in the north of the Korean Peninsula, which can be lived and traveled. Therefore, his long-term artistic creation is committed to expressing the "composition" of the real local context, and producing a large number of works, which can no longer be simply described as "feelings".
From 2005 to the present, Jin Kuigang's oil paintings have focused on the inherent symbolism of the rural world to construct the vernacular context of the vernacular realism painting style. In his early works, there would often be figures of people traveling or returning home on the country road, although not as the finishing touch in the painting, but as a deliberate "confession". That is to say, the beauty and peace of the local context are used for life, that is, "livable". But in his works after 2015, this type of confession basically no longer appears. The work continues to refine his vernacular context, but there are no longer "human traces" in the work. He continues to reinforce the vernacular context of the elements of the rural world from different perspectives, with clear seasonal characteristics and pristine simplicity, but consciously conceals signs of everyday life. Although landscape oil painting does not necessarily take the expression of human fireworks as a realm, landscape oil painting is not only based on the curiosity of walking and watching flowers. Jin Kuigang chose construction. Use each work to form a perspective, and spend more than ten years enjoying this topic. The most important thing is that he still finds that the local context he constructs still has a new perspective and still brings him creative passion. Like the bottles and cans that Morandi has been constantly showing throughout his life, Kim Kyu-gang is also spending his life telling the outside world that there is a rural situation, although in the north of the Korean Peninsula, it can make the heart soft and happy like all nostalgic and obsessive rural complexes. Therefore, in the current context of North Korea reality, as an artist, Kim Kyu-gang's humanistic feelings transcend his era.
The "appearance" part of Jin Kuigang's landscape oil painting is the main keyword involved in the rural world, such as mountains, fields, rivers, houses, country roads, phenology, landforms, seasonal phases, vegetation, crops, chickens, ducks, geese and dogs. Used as symbols to construct the local context, these symbols are usually details of the rural world, allowing people to feel the so-called nostalgia or rural life from the symbols. But for Jin Kuigang, these symbols are not only used to construct the rural context, but most importantly, these symbols have clear suggestiveness in his works, for example, he draws a township road, which will hint at where the township road leads, and how the township road in different environments is tortuous and extended. Drawing a river will suggest where it flows and where it comes from, and at the same time laying a clear picture of the river as an element of the environment. Painting a house will hint at the possible scenes in front of the house and behind the house, so that people with rural life experience can feel the link at once.
That is to say, as an artist, Jin Kuigang's experience of life in the rural world is not the symbolic appearance he has drawn in its entirety, but the perception of all the life fields and details that form a "context" in this rural context, those parts that are not depicted, and the real life experience of rural life. Kim Kwee-gang is constantly refining this grand plan by establishing an internal connection between most of his works. Among contemporary North Korean landscape oil painters, no one explores the subtleties of ordinary life and how to hide in the landscape of being chosen. While constructing his own unique rural context, Jin Kuigang created the suggestive angle of this theme. Even, you can feel every part of the object in his work, he conceals the details and hints at the path of searching, he seems to be keen to enlarge the "like" outside the work in a way that suggests more "voice-over". More precisely, while perfecting the situation of "habitable", he hid the daily life.
Obviously, the local context construction plan that has lasted for more than ten years is just the opening statement that he will continue this plan for Jin Kuigang. Now, in this known part of the "opening statement", there are more than a thousand works, which seem to have a radioactive source, from which the artist continues to radiate his creativity, constantly presenting the sustainability of this grand plan with new works. Where this motivation for perseverance comes from is unknown, but his work shows the artist's steadfastness, fanaticism and tirelessness. It should be said that the liking of collectors from the Chinese art market is also part of the driving force of the teacher of Pyongyang University of Fine Arts. People who know the export of Art in North Korea know that it is difficult for market-oriented North Korean artists not to accept the "needs" of their customers, so they often create works that are not the original intention.
However, due to the "demand" of the market, Jin Kuigang did not require Jin Kuigang to change his original intentions, and even happy to see how he realized his creative plan. Therefore, his works in China have a high-level group of collectors, who have also been able to fully understand his creations through more than two hundred group exhibitions and more than a dozen solo exhibitions. In fact, Jin Kuigang has practiced his distinctive ambitions through linguistic level, color processing, and compositional research, that is, he has tried to construct a large and unique vernacular context that is fully linked to the artist's life consciousness and experience through systematic depiction of the vernacular world. Therefore, his works not only complete the independent perspective of each painting, but at the same time, there is an internal correlation between all works or between most works. It is a detail that is split out of this vernacular context. Moreover, Kim Kyu-gang aims to achieve this goal. Through the "seasonal characteristics" presented in most works ——— the midsummer season, the spatial meaning of the situation is constructed. And through the "green" color integration is highlighted in each scene.
It should be said that on the one hand, the continuous promotion of professional institutions has enabled Jin Kuigang's works to appear frequently in exhibitions. On the other hand, the local context in his paintings makes all the people who think of nostalgia find resonance. Although the countryside in his painting is located in the north of the Korean Peninsula, the symbols in the painting are as if everyone can feel immersed in the scene. Even the rural dirt roads, free-flowing rivers, vegetable gardens in the fields, the characteristics of rice culture, etc., you have experienced and experienced them. Just like the countryside in the north, it is a place of heart and mind. If the buildings in the picture are not somewhat exotic, it is exactly the same as the northern vernacular context, which was or is now only "residual" northern vernacular. In a sense, Jin Kuigang's landscape oil paintings are used to "live", not to "watch". The artist's creation of landscape themes does not need to bind a "living space", or even a beauty pageant process with a curious mentality. Obviously, for Jin Kuigang, who constantly uses his works to construct the exact "local context" of his heart, he is not painting one or more landscape paintings with rural themes. Instead, it is a lifetime of artistic creation to prove that there is such a heavenly situation, the local context of the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. It is composed of the basic and well-known elements of the local world, and is based on the geomorphological characteristics of the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, which is a complete world, not a "part" of the world. It's a real world, not a utopia.
From the perspective of North Korea's art export, most painters are trying to adapt to the needs of internationalization, revise their creations through market feedback, or find opportunities to come to China or other countries for a long time, which can make more money and broaden their horizons. It should be said that among the North Korean artists who have been recognized in the Chinese market in the past decade or so, Kim Kyu-gang is one of the few who has never been in China, and he has not even touched this idea, because he can seek to leave the faculty of Pyongyang University of Fine Arts and go to any creative company. In fact, those creative societies or trading clubs that are familiar with the Chinese market are also eager for painters like Kim Kui-gang to come to them. Obviously, Kim Kyu-gang does not leave his teaching position, does not go to the creative society to make more money, and has his personal creative insistence, that is, he has spent more than ten years to construct a local context based on the geomorphological characteristics, phenological characteristics, vegetation characteristics, farming characteristics and local characteristics of the northern Part of the Korean Peninsula. This is his artistic ideal, and it can even be said that when he created this kind of creation with a clear artistic proposition, he did not take into account the market factor, that is to say, the creation he has been creating has not catered to the demands of the international art market at all. Of course, it turns out that art knows no borders, and he has become one of the most successful Korean artists internationally with his original Paintings of North Korean meaning. And let the Korean vernacular realist oil painting be understood and accepted by the international art market.
Kim Kyu-gang presents the nostalgia of Current Korean artists in the local context of The Korean Countryside constructed by the local realist painting style. At the same time, it also touched Chinese art appreciators in the process of great strides in industrialization with the original local context. Art knows no borders, and nostalgia knows no borders. Because beautiful things will change over time, so as a nostalgic local context is always the softness of the heart, this irreversible transition of time is the eternal nostalgia of art, perhaps only art can so directly link people from different cultural backgrounds and different current contexts to think about the community of human destiny, one of the most important issues in the current world.
Painter's name: Kim Kwai-gang
Painter Profile: Born in 1968
He graduated from Pyongyang University of Fine Arts in 1993
The work was selected to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Chairman Kim Il Sung
His works are collected by the Nanning Museum
He currently teaches at Pyongyang University of Fine Arts
Works Exhibition:
In 2012, he was selected for the Exhibition of Works of Potential Painters of Contemporary Korean Painting in Dandong Art
In 2013, it was selected for the 2013 Korean Art Collection Season beijing international art fair
In 2014, he was selected for the Mirror Image Crossing - Contemporary Korean Oil Paintings Touring Exhibition in Ningbo
In 2015, he was selected as the "Beauty Without Boundaries" Exhibition of Contemporary Korean Oil Painting Masters in Wuxi
In 2016, he was selected for the Nanjing Library, a touring exhibition of Beautiful Boundless Contemporary Korean Oil Paintings
In 2016, he was selected for the Beautiful Boundless - Contemporary Korean Oil Painting Fine Tour Exhibition Nanning
In 2017, he was selected as a touring exhibition of Modern Korean Oil Paintings in Taiyuan
In 2017, he was selected for the Beautiful Boundless Contemporary Korean Oil Painting Tour exhibition Shanghai
In 2018, he was selected for the Beautiful Boundless - Contemporary Korean Oil Painting Fine Tour Exhibition Dongguan
In 2019, he was selected for the Beauty Without Boundaries - Contemporary Korean Oil Painting Exhibition in Suzhou
In 2020, he was selected as the "Beauty Without Boundaries- Contemporary Korean Oil Painting Exhibition" Changzhou
In 2020, he was selected for the Beauty Without Boundaries - Contemporary Korean Oil Painting Exhibition Shanghai Library
Solo exhibitions:
In 2020, he was selected for the Solo Exhibition of the Works of Kim Kyong-gang, a famous contemporary Korean painter, north of the 38° line
In 2020, he was selected for the Exhibition of Beauty Without Boundaries - Contemporary Korean Oil Painting Exhibition and Nanjing Library Exhibition
In 2021, he was selected for the Exhibition of Aesthetic Boundless Contemporary Korean Oil Painting and Taiyuan Exhibition
In 2021, he was selected for the Exhibition of Aesthetic Boundless Contemporary Korean Oil Painting and Shanghai Library Exhibition
Bibliography:
"MirrorIng through Contemporary Korean Oil Paintings and Works"
"Across the River: Contemporary Korean Oil Painting Masters and Works Collection"
"Across the River, North Korea, Book Pictures and Fine Art Works Exhibition and Contemporary Korean Oil Painting Masters Exchange Exhibition Collection"
"Crossing the 38° North Latitude Line: A Collection of Case Studies on the Output of Contemporary Korean Oil Painting Art"
"Nationalization: The Vitality and Creativity of Korean Art: A Collection of Contemporary Korean Oil Paintings"
Beauty Without Boundaries: Selected Contemporary Korean Oil Paintings
"Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China and Commemorating the 70th Anniversary of the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between China and the DPRK Contemporary Korea Oil Painting Exchange Exhibition Collection"
"Collection of Works of Contemporary Korean Art Exhibition commemorating the 70th Anniversary of the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between China and the DPRK"
"The Book of Rural Sounds: North of the 38° North Latitude Line: A Collection of Works by The Famous Contemporary Korean Oil Painter Kim Kyu-gang"
"2017 Beauty Without Boundaries - Contemporary Korean Oil Painting Exhibition, Nanning Museum Collection"
"2018 Beauty Without Boundaries - Contemporary Korean Oil Painting Exhibition , Taiyuan Collection"
"2019 Beauty Without Boundaries - Contemporary Korean Oil Painting Exhibition , Suzhou Works Collection"
"2020 Beauty Without Boundaries - Contemporary Korean Oil Painting Exhibition , Nanjing Library Collection"
"2021 Beauty Without Boundaries - Contemporary Korean Oil Painting Exhibition , Shanghai Library Collection"
Exhibition time: 2.14-2.28