ART FACTORY
2007.09
Unlike conventional landscape, and mountain-and-water painting, portraying contemplative beauty, nature in Kim Sung-nam’s painting is furious. Twigs and leaves entangle and fill the canvas. They mash and disperse through rough brushwork, losing original form. In a summer scene, depicting fresh verdure, dense foliage flows down like vegetable juice. In a winter scene, bare trees expose black skeletons. Even a deserted house in a tranquil scene trembles with concealed tension. Kim’s most recent work forefronts nature dramatically, but it is far from an exaggerated hymn of praise to nature, or some exquisite depiction of beautiful subject matter on fine canvas. In his work, nature retains primitive energy: Without the usual sense of peace and blessing, this energy traces through injured and moaning animals, plants, and endangered humans.