Kim Tschang-yeul, the most well-known South Korean contemporary artist (of the west), died on January 5, 2021, at the age of 91. After living in France for many years, he became known as the “water drop painter” and is renowned internationally. At the same time, he was a member of the Dansaekhwa Painting Movement of Korea, an important abstract art form in Asia (after World War II). It emphasized the return to natural monochrome painting and simple forms, developing a unique artistic expression of Eastern thinking.
Born in South Korea during the war in 1929, Kim’s works were destined to have soothing connotations. After leaving South Korea in the 1960’s, he lived in New York. Limited by the local pop art scene and materialism of the city, he decided to move to Paris in the 1970’s, ushering in the peak of his creative period. Once, he accidently sprayed water on a canvas; when he saw the water droplets shimmering and shining under the refraction of the light, he knew at a glance that this was the form of creation he had been looking for. Water droplets have a healing effect. Kim said that the act of painting water droplets represents dissolving all impurities and returning to a pure state of “nothingness”, which was his way of returning to peace and comfort. In dealing with anger, anxiety, and fear, he believed that he had adopted a way to deliberately exclude self awareness and find ways to express himself through water droplets. Looking back on his life experience (through the era of Japanese colonization and the Korean war), both his personal and social issues were full of cultural and historical scars. The water droplets were his way of responding to these life experiences. He said, “water droplets don’t have any symbolic meaning. The effect is to erase my memory.”
The curator Kim Seong-Hee said: “Although the water droplets can be transparent, shiny, and disappear in a blink of an eye, the water droplets of Kim Tschang-Yeul can be moved by beauty forever.” The seemingly non-existent moments always exist on the canvas forever. With the number of water droplets gathering and scattering, the rapid increase of different sizes portrays the lightness of human life that is present in the world. Since then, he has specialized in drip painting. The child’s experience with practicing calligraphy in “Thousand Character Classic” was added to his later paintings (which possessed Eastern philosophical thinking), and integrated into art. The combination of Chinese characters and water droplets (full of zen) best reflects the characteristics of Eastern artists. He began to develop a personal style, after living in an exotic and artistic environment.
In retrospect, he became famous early in his career because he actively exhibited with Korea’s contemporary art movement and used his own artistic creations to protect and develop Korea’s visual practice of cultural and ethical values. In this context, it quickly became easy to form the Dansaekhwa Painting Movement with Korean artists such as Whanki Kim, Park Seo-bo, Lee Ufan, Yun Hyong-Keun, Jung Sung-hwa, and Ha Chong-Hyun. It is mentioned and established in the history of Asian art as national consciousness and Eastern art. Although Dansaekhwa derives from Western artistic concepts, they deliberately use Korean instead of Monochrome as the English translation in order to create a distinct difference. They created a different kind of post-war abstraction in Asia.
The Dansaekhwa Painting Movement emphasizes the meditation of brushstrokes when repeatedly painting the same color, and the experience of using color achieves a unique physical texture and an inadvertently carved color structure. Color is a representation of nature reflected in meditation. The artist’s pursuit of returning to nature is a very different artistic concept and practice from the West. The artist Lee Ufan said: “It was an era where everyone’s life was tied to extreme poverty and could not move. It was an era of abstraction. This is the background of monochromatic painting. On the one hand, it is the material scarcity caused by life in extreme poverty. On the other, it is the brutal military government. The monochrome style is just right, so it has a great appeal. The use of monochrome and repeated techniques as a collective style is to express the will to fight.” Behind the unified color in the picture is the dignity and creativity produced by introspection and getting rid of practicality so that the work is full of vitality.
After observing Kim Tschang-yeul’s water drop paintings, it is not difficult to find that his artistic views and philosophy are full of concepts from the Dansaekhwa Painting Movement, unified colors, and the pursuit of life experience. Throughout his life, Kim devoted himself to Eastern philosophy, bringing diverse ideas to a Western-dominated art world, and establishing breakthroughs of technique and form in Asian art.
Photo 1：Kim Tschang-Yeul, Procession #4, 1971, acrylic and cellulose lacquer on linen. Courtesy the artist and Tina Kim Gallery
Photo 2 left：Park Seobo, Ecriture No.140106, 2014, Acrylic with Korean Hanji paper on canvas. 170 x 130 cm Courtesy Perrotin
Photo 2 right：Artist Kim Tschang-Yeul portrait, courtesy the artist Tina Kim Gallery
