Sometimes I visit art galleries, not because I can afford to buy paintings, but because life’s more fun when there’s art around.
Just came back from a show of Kwon Ki Soo’s iconic art at the Flowers Gallery in Chelsea. Kwon is a South Korean pop artist whose colorful paintings are inhabited by a symbolic smiley nicknamed Dongguri. Actually, ‘inhabit’ is an understatement — perennially haunted may be the more appropriate term, because everywhere you turn, there he is!
Dongguri is a patented presence, a superficial facade. Its opacity is blamelessly simple. Dongguri tells us everything is going to be all right simply by not telling us anything. He is the emblem of children’s television shows, the logo on our shopping bags. He is everywhere, and yet we know nothing about him.
I see so many elements coming together in Kwon’s paintings, but I’m not going to list them all. Kwon has previously explained Dongguri‘s smile was inspired by the Buddha, a smile of silence that is also one of compassionate understanding. Kwon was trained in traditional Korean painting, which explains the reference to bamboos, chrysanthemums and rain-pelted landscapes. Most of all, I love his use of bold, primary colors. And like his pop predecessors Takashi Murakami and Nara Yoshitomo, Kwon’s work is sophisticated yet approachable, high art yet commercially viable.
Kwon Ki Soo: Recent Works is on view at the Flowers Gallery from September 10 to October 2.
