ARTIST STATEMENT

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Though my work has evolved through many different phases, a consistency exists. I have always found rejuvenation and renewal in nature and the landscape. Daily inspiration flows from the sight of a single flower to the majestic mountains and shores that surround me. Nature as God provided to us is the source of my joy in life. The works comprise my testimony to God. My amazement at his creation renews itself with the approach of each new season, with every new blossom and seed.

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Equally inspirational to my work is my background. Born and raised in Korea, I began my formal art training in Seoul but completed it in the United States. Being uprooted from one’s homeland to be replanted on foreign soil does not equate a total loss or gain either way. It is a matter of taking and abandoning some choices. Bridging and integrating the gap between two such vastly different cultures has challenged and enriched me as an artist. In the ocean between the two societies I have found a wide and deep source of visions. By making art that incorporates the East and West, I have found immense fulfillment through the process of making art that truly reflects my unique experience as a person and an artist.

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This push and pull between cultures manifests itself in the work. Abstraction and figuration, East and West, tradition and modernity: these tensions are re-created in my work through the use of varied visual tools and compositional structures found in both Eastern and Western art. The grids, scrims, patches of color, and symbols of the natural world that appear in my work necessarily do so in a fragmentary way, for they signify the spatial shifts of time involved in culling microcosmic glimpses of my daily experience.

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EDUCATION

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1971 MFA, Hartford Art School, University of Hartford, Connecticut

1966–69 The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

1965 BFA, College of Fine Arts, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea

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SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

 

2019 

‘Core Evolution ‘ Korea Culture Center,  Los Angeles, California

2017 

‘Soli Deo Gloria’ Union Center, LA Artcore,  Los Angeles, California 

2015 

Ancestral Garden, Thomas Paul Fine Art, Los Angeles, California

2013 

Thomas Paul Fine Art, Los Angeles, California  

2011

Thomas Paul Fine Art, Los Angeles, California

2008

AndrewShire Gallery, Singapore 

2005

Timothy Yarger Fine Art, Beverly Hills, California

LMAN Gallery, Los Angeles, California

2004

Sunam Gallery, Pusan, Korea

2003

LA Artcore at the Union Center, Los Angeles, California

2001

Park Ryu Sook Gallery, Seoul, Korea

2000

Gensler, Santa Monica, California

L.A. Artcore Center, Los Angeles, California

1999

Artcore Brewery Annex, Los Angeles, California 

Yemac Gallery, Seoul, Korea

1998

John ‘N Joe Gallery, Los Angeles, California

1996

Arario Gallery, Cheon-An, Korea

1995

John ‘n Joe Gallery, Los Angeles, California

1994

Saemteo Gallery, Seoul, Korea

Sabina Lee Gallery, Los Angeles, California

1992

LACA Gallery, Los Angeles, California

1991

Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, Korea

1990

Simmonson Gallery, Los Angeles, California

1989

Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, Korea

1987

Simmonson Gallery, Los Angeles, California

1983

Creative Art Center, Burbank, California

1981

Sun Arts Gallery, Seoul, Korea

1972

Emerson Gallery, McLean, Virginia

1966

 Public Information Center, Seoul, Korea

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SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

 

2018 

Realities Novelles 2018, Parc Floral De Paris, Paris, France

‘The Los Angeles Spirit ‘  Galerie Abstract Project, Paris, France

2015

Another Step,  Korean Cultural Center,  LA,  CA

2014

Four Corners, Gallery Western, LA, CA

LA-Mexico Culture Exchange,   Centro Cultural Coreana,Mexico City, Mexico

2013

Franklyn Memorial Exhibition, LA Artcore Center, Los Angeles, California

2012

Mind Game IV, AndrewShire Gallery, Los Angeles, California

2011

San Francisco Art Fair (Thomas Paul Fine Art, Los Angeles , booth)

"Perseverance + Passion," Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles, California

2010

"Mind Game III," AndrewShire Gallery, Los Angeles, California

2009

"24-Square," Thomas Paul Fine Art, Los Angeles, California

2008

L.A. Art Show (Yarger/Strauss Contemporary Fine Art,Beverly Hills, California, booth)

2007

Shilla Gallery, Taegu, Korea (with Kang So Lee, Moon Sup Shim, Oh Chun)

“L.A. Artcore Exchange,” San Luis Obispo Art Center, San Luis Obispo, California

2006

“Meditative Journey of the Four,” espace SOL, Seoul, Korea

L.A. Artcore Union Center, Los Angeles (with Franklin Liegel and Kaoru Mansour)

“Images in Motion,” AndrewShire Gallery, Los Angeles

“Process,” Sarah Lee Artworks and Projects, Santa Monica, California

Inaugural exhibition, Joongang Art Gallery, Los Angeles

2004

L.A. Art Show (Timothy Yarger Fine Art, Beverly Hills, California, booth),Barker Hangar, Santa Monica, California

“Town & Country,” Sears Peyton Gallery, New York, New York

“Mind Game II,” AndrewShire Gallery, Los Angeles, California

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