Aggregation 07-DE250

Chun Kwang Young's quiet but forceful aesthetic vocabulary can be traced back to the 1970s when Chun first delved into Abstract Art. His investigation into different materials, techniques and colors soon built a concrete platform for developing his Aggregation series. Chun's curious play of colours was controlled by his awareness of the role of lighting and illumination. Although he utilized the conventionally Western medium of oil, his innate affinity towards his own culture is apparent in the way he uses thin oil washes in a manner characteristic of ink. Having returned to Korea in 1977, Chun began to revisit childhood memories, especially that of hanging herb paper bags at the herbal medicine dispensary, and he started incorporating them into his artistry. His later works of the 1980s focus on the aesthetic composition found across the compressed elegance that fills the canvas, and feature Chun's characteristic method of meticulous and dynamic repetition that is consistent throughout his artistic career.

Crafted as a relief, Aggregation 07-DE250 (Lot 165) resembles the rocky plateaus of the desert, with three-dimensional forms growing out of its rectangular ecology. The works adeptly show Chun's technical virtuosity in simultaneously creating illusion of depth and an intimacy through his choice of materials. Traditional Korean mulberry paper, meticulously dyed with colors taken from nature - green persimmon, gardenia seeds, leaves, chestnut shells, yellow earth and black teas - enhances the perceptual and conceptual complexity in his works. The vivid power of the moving waves in his complicated surface elicits our emotions, perhaps even our innate existential thoughts of the meaning of life and humanity.