Culture Share: Kate Oh Gallery New York K-Art Festival: Small Works Group Exhibition

EXHIBITION AND RECEPTION

Kate Oh’s New York K-Art Festival:
A Trek Through Styles and Subjects

(photography and videography below by Mega)

by Ekin Erkan

From March 4 – 12, 2023, Kate Oh Gallery will be hosting the New York K-Art Festival, with the opening reception on Saturday, March 4, from 2:00 – 5:00 PM. The show features approximately thirty small-scale works, each of which is priced very affordably. Curated in salon-style and galvanizing the participatory ethos of venerable historical salons like those held by the Société des Artistes Indépendants, the participating artists—each of which is showing one painting—work in varied styles, themes, and media. There will also be something akin to a performing arts talent show on the night of the opening, with the artists taking the role of singers, dancers, and the like, showcasing their non-painting/visual art skills.

The sheer diversity of styles is notable. But if there is a running theme, it is the influence and appropriation of traditional Korean modes like minhwa. Some artists, like Agnes Woo, give us directly representational/figurative works—Woo’s doe-eyed golden retriever almost seems to beam at us. In their jaws, however, are three tuffets (green, marron, and coral), pointers to dancheong and thus alerting us to the traditional line of influence at play. At times, like with Haengja Kim’s Morando, this genealogy of traditional influence is also rooted in the media (in this case it is hanji paper), an apt background to the unfurling lotuses fitted with bright, ravishing colors.

Surrealist reverie enters with Haeyoung Yoon’s Chak, an assembly of vases and furniture figuring as elements of the object study—that is, until we notice the peacock feathers which double as protruding, all-seeing eyes. Min Kim takes up the still life genre, showing the dexterity of a masterful artist who are able to use pocketed space to flaunt virtuosic command over their objects, arrangements, and use of perspective (to say nothing of the rich symbolism). Hee Ju Kim’s Rose and Nan Ho Lee’s Spring, with their impressionist watercolors and verdant pedals, figure in the genre painting mode as well, as does Heesook Moon’s quiet, calming Iris. Kwangsik Sohn's Goldfish, which uses hanji and oriental ink, gives us a flaxen flock of fluttering wings drifting across a placid body of water—impressionistic yet again, but in a completely distinct persuasion. Gwi Deok Lee’s Chochungdo is another example of a traditional work, each butterfly and insect circling the towering bushel rife with metaphor; notably, Chochungdo paintings conventionally feature flowers and insects, notable for their delicate touch, centered compositions, and graceful use of colors. Lee invites us to peer inside of her timeless garden.

 Despite the size constraints, a number of pieces truly stand out in how they toy with the picture-plane’s limits—one particular work of note is Eunchong Kim’s Woman clothed with stars, where the eponymous, fuchsia-haired woman’s face crowns a gargantuan, bulbous body lattice-crossed in a glistening azure dress. The armory of flowers making her bed exude an earthly serenity. Kyongmo Lee’s Aesthetics of the year tethers together a number of glossy, globular stones, ripples of hoary grey and fleshy green floating on an crinkled expanse, ever-ethereal.

The aforementioned pieces are almost entirely within the figurative purview, which altogether erupts with Kyung Hoon Min’s Here I Am, a Hans Hoffman-esque panel of cyan cracked by blushes of crimson and speckles of coal-black, whilst reams of tangerine burst. It is a welcome change in style. Kate Oh’s piece, similarly abstract, features a deep wading pool of light blue and navy swellings, ripples and darts of grassy lush green and salmon topping it; one can easily lose themselves in these textures. So, too, is Mi Ju’s contribution, which is an altogether playful, kaleidoscopic abstraction fitted with greenery and puzzle-like pieces set together; the work confounds our perception as what appears to be minute eyeballs dart and drift, an orange rocky mound growing, swelling and swirling into a multitude of parcels. Such bits rotate and slip in Sungwon Yun’s Time in between, graphite and pen charting bubble-like holes—a sulfurous river, crashing and pulling. Though perhaps there is no cleft so unexpected and conclusive as Open Door by In Young Park, a brilliant shimmering panel—rectangular and warped—giving us a kind of autonomy that plays on the Donald Judd classics.

The visual cue most often returned to is the floral—specifically, the iris, the crowning jewel of Micha Yu’s Iris II, with four flaming cardinal flowers still in the air, petals a-roar. The same floral theme is in Mija Lim’s Hope, where the flush roseate background flower is, upon inspection, revealed to, itself, be made up of a teeming waft of flowers. Sungsook Hong’s Wild Midwest relocates the untouched stretch of nature into a snow-bed, hills folded between careening winds.

Following the history of great 20th century artists who have keenly drawn us towards the sensitivity of the canvas and its material linealities, Mi Kyoung Yun’s Queen of Hearts tenderly applies light acrylic on her canvas, the flower-tufts of hair turning and spooling into bundles. We can see the canvas’ own ripples, an effect of the airy, ginger use of paint. Sooyeong Chang’s Three Princesses, a masterful terra cotta, gives us the triad formation of Cranach’s The Judgment of Paris and Three Graces, appropriating the mythic. The sole work of photography, SuJung Jo’s Daydream, guides the aesthetics of banality into a cold, almost harrowing act of voyeurism, recalling the quiet observing eye of the Düsseldorf School of Photography. There are mixed-media works and fashion items in the show as well, such as Heemin Moon’s red & black dogs, both whimsical, functional items.

To Purchase a Piece go here: https://www.kateohgallery.com/ Original Post here: https://www.thegrenchusfoundation.org/additional-cultural-galleries/2023/3/9/culture-share-kate-oh-gallery-new-york-k-art-festival-small-works-group-exhibition To make a donation to The Grenchus Foundation go here: https://www.thegrenchusfoundation.org/donateTo Purchase a Piece go here: https://www.kateohgallery.com/ Original Post here: https://www.thegrenchusfoundation.org/additional-cultural-galleries/2023/3/9/culture-share-kate-oh-gallery-new-york-k-art-festival-small-works-group-exhibition To make a donation to The Grenchus Foundation go here: https://www.thegrenchusfoundation.org/donateThere is, indeed, truly something for every stripe of collector in this exhibition. The drifts and ruptures in style guarantee this, as do the sensitive price points. Kate Oh has produced a genuine curatorial tour-de-force.

About the Critic:
Ekin Erkan, PhD is a researcher in art history, where his primary areas of study are contemporary installation art, photography, and American & European modern art. He works as an art critic for several publications and as an art history researcher. He has been published in both academic and popular venues, with over 50 peer-reviewed articles, and has spoken at dozens of academic conferences.

To Purchase a Piece go here: https://www.kateohgallery.com/

To make a donation to The Grenchus Foundation go here: https://www.thegrenchusfoundation.org/donate