Work 20-V-74

Even in the entire Asia, there are very few areas like South Korea which has created original abstract paintings in a high-standard fusion of Eastern sensitivity and Western modernism. In particular, Kim Whanki was an important artist who produced pioneer geometrical abstract works in the 1930s and he consistently sought after refined abstract forms until the 1970s. He came to Japan where he studied European modernism, and later established a style of highly lyrical and formal tension by using traditional painting motifs such as plum blossoms and pots. Yet, not satisfied with this style, he went on breaking new ground in Paris and New York. As for this work of his very last years in the 'all-over stipple' technique, a comfortable rhythm is produced by the dots of mismatched colors on the canvas and the straight lines created by the spaces in between the dots spread out beyond the frame of the canvas. Here, there unfolds an ample space like the universe, which this artist attained in the end.