akive

Son Donghyun, (b.1980) started to gain attention two years ago, when <The Portrait of Hero, Mr. James Bond> was exhibited at Gallery Ccot and his first solo exhibition <<Pa-Ap Icon>> was held in the Art Space Hue. Starting from these works, artist painted portraits of familiar characters in Disney animation or Hollywood movies such as Batman, Robocop, Bugs Bunny and Golum. They are painted on yellow tinted Korean paper with pigments used in Oriental Painting and the names and the prefix were made up with phonics of Chinese characters to create speciousness as Oriental portraits. It is unexpected to meet the familiar modern characters in the paintings that look like they are coming from the museum at a glance. The first thing came up on artist's mind when he pondered on the idea of unification of tradition and modernity was 'What would Kim Hong-Do paint if he lives in the contemporary era?' It is absolutely reasonable to see street scene of Dong-du cheon in the folk painting of Kim Hong do, to appreciate the image TV stars we adore in the portraits or to observe personified character animals wandering around in the Oriental landscape painting. His works evolved from his past exhibition now. Trendy and fashionable logos dominating the scenery of everyday life such as Nike, Adidas, Burger king and Starbucks turns into traditional Logotype, a genre of Min-hwa( Korea folk painting). Logotypes interpret letters as it appears, and by presenting both text and diagram it brings both symbol and the meaning to life. The painting of 'Chung' fills up the frame with epigram and symbols that represents 'loyalty' (especially toward royal family), in order to make the painting itself to reveals the meaning of the word. The fact that logotype of 'Chung' and 'Hyo (filial piety)' existed shows that the virtues as such were important in the traditional society. On the same note, Son's Logotype shows how the image of 'Adidas' is connecting product and the consumer so smoothly. Each letters turned into logotype bears the conventional meaning as well as give and receive the image that represents consumer product. It suggests that to consume is a contemporary virtue, just like 'Chung' and 'Hyo' was the traditional society. This April, find out the new and evolved works of Dong-Hyun Son who attempts to combine the methodology of Traditional Oriental painting with the images of contemporary era artfully at doArt gallery.