Harmony with Nature: 46x53cm:Korean Paper: Black Ink and Color Paint:2011

Master artist Min Kyoung-kap is known for his uniquely Korean-style painting, carving out his own art territory in the Oriental painting genre in the form of an abstract art. For his outstanding achievement in discovering his own unique artistic style, he became the youngest painter to win the National Art Exhibition Award at the tender age of 24, sending shock waves through the painting world.

Master artist Min Kyoung-kap

Yusan Min Kyoung-kap moved between the abstract and non-abstract in his pursuit of harmony with nature as an artist, sometimes appreciating it and sometimes to emphasize the need for oneness with nature.

He went past his non-figurative period in the 1960s and began taking up nature as a major objective of his artwork, which is full of sensitivity and spirit, to revive the Oriental identity to express and search for the harmony with nature.

Harmony with Nature: 75x135cm: Korean Paper:Black Ink and Color Paint:2011

The harmony of nature, human, and things was represented as an idealistic nature. The paintings had an air of ‘true view’ landscape, but the daring use of color fields, rather than realistic expressions, was chosen to portray the objects. The artist started to notice the subtle yet expressive potential of colors, which provided a foundation for his unique style of Korean painting in color.  

This is the period in which the artist immersed himself even deeper into the way of nature. Deeply ingrained in the paintings of this period are Taoist beliefs in non-doing and letting nature be, which preclude any artificially and embrace nature “as it is.” The artist showed a visual world where abstraction and representation organically coalesced in a way that artificial manipulation or technical skills were abandoned to the fullest extent possible in portraying the object of nature. 

A Coexistence with Nature: 112x194cm: Korean Paper:Black Ink and Color Paint:2012

The artist’s thought of non-doing and letting nature be, which precludes artificiality, was further expanded to take the concept of ‘fathers.’ Suchness, the innate truth of nature, is the meditative topic for his work. Suchness is the truth advocated in Buddhism, which means the mode of being “as such,” or “as is in original true state.”  He saw unselfconscious pureness, freed from artificiality, technicality, and foulness, as the essence of nature, the true self of humans and the essence of nature, the true self of humans and the essence of art.

The use of colors was minimized, and muk (black ink), containing and embracing all colors, was returned to take center stage in his visualized world of pureness.

The Innate Truth of Nature: 112x162cm:Korean Paper: Black Ink and Color Paint:2011