Johyun Gallery
（釜山）
For ACK 2024, Johyun Gallery presents an exhibition featuring three masters of Korean contemporary art whose practices delve into various forms to express the innate energy of nature. Park Seo-Bo, Lee Bae, and Kim Chong Hak are leading voices of their generation, challenging art norms with roots deeply embedded in Eastern philosophy and traditions, emphasizing nature’s potential to heal and purify.
Park Seo-Bo’s paintings, mirroring nature’s colors, serve as a remedy for viewers’ anxieties. Following a transformative trip to Japan in 2000, where the vibrant autumn foliage left an indelible mark, Park Seo-Bo resolved to capture nature’s hues on canvas. His Ecriture series in pink, inspired by sakura in Kyoto—where he visited every year during his lifetime to see the blossoms—embodies this endeavor.
Lee Bae, renowned for his charcoal abstractions, bridges Eastern and Western cultures through his work. Despite charcoal’s vulnerability to dissolution, it symbolically represents the extraordinary within the ordinary, transcending cultural boundaries.
Inspired by mountain creatures, Kim Chong Hak continues his “kiwoon saengdong” (氣韻生動 – ‘breathing, resonating, vital force’) style that traverses both abstract and figurative forms. Evolving from his exploration of nature’s beauty in the 1980s, Kim’s work showcases decades of masterful palettes developed for each season, embodying vitality and resonance.
Gallery Information
Founded in 1989, Johyun Gallery has been advancing Korean artists both at home and abroad, influencing modern and contemporary Korean art history. The gallery presented exhibitions of post-war and Dansaekhwa artists Park Seo-Bo, Lee Ufan, Kim Chong Hak, and Nam June Paik prior to their global recognition. Since 2007, Johyun has expanded its program to include representation of international artists including Yayoi Kusama, Claude Viallat, Bernard Frize, and Bosco Sodi, as well as the Korean diaspora artists such as Jin Meyerson, Ahn Jisan and Jongsuk Yoon. Johyun annually hosts over ten solo exhibitions across its three spaces in Seoul and Busan, maintaining a continued commitment to defining the present and future of contemporary art while considering its critical and historical context.
