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Lot Essay
"I am employing old themes from my motherland-ancient remains, masks, ancient plant pattern."
- Nam Kwan
Nam Kwan is one of the most highly recognized pioneers of abstract painting in Korean Modern Art history along with his contemporary artist, Kim Whan-Ki. In 1954, after returning from Japan, Nam decided to move to Paris in order to develop his own visual language by learning from Western masters, and also practice his art in a new environment. Through extensive experiments with various materials and techniques in Paris, by the early 1960s, Nam began to develop his signature style and motif: unique shapes evoking letters, historical remains, stones, crowns from the Silla Dynasty, and Korean traditional masks. Unlike renowned Western calligraphy abstract painters such as Hans Hartung, Mark Tobey, and Franz Klein, who mostly pursued free brushstrokes of spontaneous energy and action, Nam preferred to carefully devise letter shapes and make them constructive. Nam's signature ideogram style continued to evolve into the next stage; more concrete structure by occupying repeated letters on the canvas during the 1970s and using soft shapes of ideograms as if they were floating in the universe in the 1980s. Collapsed Ruins (Lot 183) featured here, is a representative example that demonstrates his mature technique and evolved style employing the ideograms during the 1980s. Its unique aesthetic qualities come from mesmerizing harmonies of blues and his signature ideograms; airy, feathery blues with deeper sapphires in the painting evoke Korean traditional garments created from dyes extracted from plants and flowers; his signature ideograms combined with historical ruins, Chinese and Korean characters, and human faces evoke the rich history of humans. Nam expresses hope, and at the same time conveys the futility of life by floating them in the air. As Jon C. Covell, one among many Western critics who praised Nam Kwan's works said, "Only an inspired artist can guide us to this magic land." Collapsed Ruins will take the viewer to the magic land of ultimate harmony and peace beyond struggle, between life and death.
- Nam Kwan
Nam Kwan is one of the most highly recognized pioneers of abstract painting in Korean Modern Art history along with his contemporary artist, Kim Whan-Ki. In 1954, after returning from Japan, Nam decided to move to Paris in order to develop his own visual language by learning from Western masters, and also practice his art in a new environment. Through extensive experiments with various materials and techniques in Paris, by the early 1960s, Nam began to develop his signature style and motif: unique shapes evoking letters, historical remains, stones, crowns from the Silla Dynasty, and Korean traditional masks. Unlike renowned Western calligraphy abstract painters such as Hans Hartung, Mark Tobey, and Franz Klein, who mostly pursued free brushstrokes of spontaneous energy and action, Nam preferred to carefully devise letter shapes and make them constructive. Nam's signature ideogram style continued to evolve into the next stage; more concrete structure by occupying repeated letters on the canvas during the 1970s and using soft shapes of ideograms as if they were floating in the universe in the 1980s. Collapsed Ruins (Lot 183) featured here, is a representative example that demonstrates his mature technique and evolved style employing the ideograms during the 1980s. Its unique aesthetic qualities come from mesmerizing harmonies of blues and his signature ideograms; airy, feathery blues with deeper sapphires in the painting evoke Korean traditional garments created from dyes extracted from plants and flowers; his signature ideograms combined with historical ruins, Chinese and Korean characters, and human faces evoke the rich history of humans. Nam expresses hope, and at the same time conveys the futility of life by floating them in the air. As Jon C. Covell, one among many Western critics who praised Nam Kwan's works said, "Only an inspired artist can guide us to this magic land." Collapsed Ruins will take the viewer to the magic land of ultimate harmony and peace beyond struggle, between life and death.