Rural Poetry: The Aesthetic Purpose of Jin Kuigang's Landscape Oil Paintings
Guitao Bao (Curator\Art Critic)
The famous Swiss curator and critic Obrist, in a conversation with Richter, mentioned "escape", saying, "This concept of escape is always unexpected in the world today, which is a kind of reality-oriented escape: neither nostalgic escape to the past nor utopian escape to the future." This statement of his is a very good illustration of the characteristics of korean vernacular realist painting at present. Neither nostalgia nor utopianism, but a real journey or flight to reality." For Jin Kuigang, "reality" is exactly everything he needs, and the main idea and content, color and context he wants to express are there, and even as a creative resource, there is an inexhaustible state. In fact, from his works, he also conveys the infinity of this resource, and even makes people feel that he is always impatient, because there are too many things to paint.
(Private Collection)
Obviously, the vernacular as a resource is not only presented to a small number of so-called vernacular realist painters such as Jin Kuigang. However, for most painters, the vernacular is a kind of "landscape", the object of the painter's description, and the socialist face of the vernacular should be depicted for the creation itself and the needs of society. But for the North Korean vernacular realist painters, and especially for Kim Kyu-jong, as Obrist put it, the vernacular is the reality to which he is going to flee, the real "world" that draws you to it. This is also a particular surprise to many collectors, why ten or twenty years have passed, Kim Kyu-gang represents the "rural world" of the north of the Korean Peninsula. Still full of attraction, still colorful.
For many Korean painters, the countryside is a kind of achievement of socialist construction, a new landscape of the socialist countryside, and a beautiful paradise of rural society, so that the scenery that meets the above characteristics is the context of local art. In Jin Kuigang's creation, as the "poetry" of eternity, the countryside is deeply expressed or fully expressed as the eternal part of the local world, such as mountains and rivers, geomorphological characteristics, the beauty of seasonal phases, simple daily life, peaceful and peaceful, vegetation nongsang, rural settlements and so on. These constitute the core of rural poetry, and are the poetic villages that are unique to the north of the Korean Peninsula once depicted so that everyone can truly feel those heart-warming poetic villages.
Jin Kuigang firmly grasps the green in the poetic construction of the countryside, and his works can always make people feel the eternity of summer, as if the main body of the rural world is always the green of the vegetation that spreads over the mountains, the green under the sun, the green of the seasonal characteristics, the green of the lush life, the green of the crops and so on. It seems that the focus of rural poetry is the most heart-warming green. The simplicity and purity of color treatment make Jin Kuigang's rural poetry more simple and direct, and will mobilize the life experience of each viewer, that is, summer is so lingering, precisely because green surrounds the beauty and harmony of nature. Even if it is the fading green, the barren and ruined green, in short, the green structures the fundamentals of the local society, because green, no matter what form and sign, refers to the rural world.
For Jin Kuigang, the countryside is not a kind of search and expression of the landscape, the countryside is precisely a kind of reality, which exists in the artist's own heart, structures the yearning of the spiritual world, and is accurately presented in the commonplace daily life, that is, ordinary life, without the need for landscape-like discovery and performance. The question is how the painter himself views the constant change of the countryside in the context of artistic creation, rather than the landscapeist expression of the countryside. As a result, Jin Kuigang's oil paintings have given many collectors the illusion that the artist himself is always present, in the painting, telling about the local culture of a strange country, rural civilization, or even just about the natural nudity of the local area, making a brief explanation for you to feel, rather than imposing more ideology or other information on the viewer. It is even clearer to feel that you have experienced a hike about "nature", especially through the solo observation of the structure of many works.
Obviously, in developed countries or developed regions, the protection of local civilization or culture by the rural world allows the original and natural local land to be extended, and the sustainable ecology and appearance can even stop any so-called construction or development. This kind of effort cannot be achieved in underdeveloped countries or regions, and even backward or underdeveloped areas are changing the shape and history of the local world with continuous rural transformation, and destroying the constant local civilization with the so-called "new" orientation. From this, the significance of Jin Kuigang's oil paintings is highlighted, and it shows that artistic creation, through the power of aesthetics, both warns and opposes, but also through the establishment of a "landscape" system, such as the creation of localities, presenting important cultural fields and natural eternity that may be destroyed by ignorance and short-sightedness.
From Jin Kuigang's creation, it can be found that some kind of rural life or life experience from the local world can be transformed into firm faith, and for a painter, it is to tirelessly express this firm idea. Of course, in different historical time and space and realistic contexts, it will be reflected in greatly different artistic styles and personal meanings. Therefore, putting Kim Kui-gang's creation into the reality of north Korea at present, it is more and more accurate to his artistic value and transcendence, especially in the group of contemporary landscape oil painters, it is more clear that Kim Kui-gang is thriving, which will definitely give conclusions in the future history of Korean art. In fact, as a landscape painter, Kim Kyu-gang has become a representative painter of contemporary Korean oil painting outside of his home country and in the Chinese art market, because his works are loved by Chinese collectors. Even collectors who like his works do not necessarily fully notice his identity as a North Korean painter, but are more moved and infected by the local feelings of the works and the oriental meaning of local philosophy. This is the power of landscape oil painting, there are no borders, no ideology, just beauty, aesthetics, just like.
As an artistic resource, the countryside not only achieves the symbol recognition of artists, but also constructs the humanistic feelings of artists. As a result, the localism and rural complexes presented by the cultures and contexts of different eras have enriched human nostalgia. The nostalgia that can travel through time and space can always inadvertently pluck everyone's heartstrings.