Gallery DOO in Cheongdam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul (led by Jeong Du-gyeong) will hold artist Kim Sang-gyeong's (57) solo exhibition "Time of the blue forest" from Apr. 28 to May 16, 2026.
Artist Kim Sang-gyeong captures the nature of places visited on canvas. The subjects on the canvas are specific plants symbolizing their regions, such as Jeju's winter tangerine trees and jack-in-the-pulpit berries, Hawaii's silversword, breadfruit tree, and ʻōhiʻa lehua.
After undergoing life-or-death surgery in 2010, the artist went to Jeju Island for healing and rest. At Geomun Oreum, Kim encountered the streamlined leaves and diverse colors of plants such as jack-in-the-pulpit, ferns, reeds, and silver grass, and the movement swaying in strong winds, as well as the sky and clouds filling the field of vision, held powerful vitality.
The soil of Ttarabi Oreum in Gasi-ri, Pyoseon-myeon, formed by three craters (gumburi) and six peaks, was red. The color of the land, contrasted with the blue sky, came in strong waves. Along the paths in the landscapes transferred into the works, the red earth tones branching in several directions render the canvas dynamically.
Including Jeju Island, the places the artist later visited, such as Hawaii and New Zealand, are volcanic terrains. The red volcanic ash earth nurtures life and becomes increasingly abundant. As narrators in the works, a boy and a girl, a crow and a blue bird, and a companion dog appear. The first motif landscape featuring a puppy is from central Italy. The artist does not travel and then find landscapes, but travels for the purpose of finding landscapes.
The crow that often appears in the works seems as if, in ancient times when human language did not exist, it flew into a cave and a taxidermied creature came back to life. The crow, which appears in Goguryeo's "three-legged crow" and the folktale of "Gyeonwu and Jiknyeo," is a symbol of a benevolent spiritual being and a good omen.
The most striking feature of the works is the strong contrast between warm and cool colors with a dreamy yet distinct palette. The vivid colors evoke a world where time and space seem twisted, or where all time and space are condensed. The strong color contrast gives the canvas depth and expansiveness.
Because the impressions and feelings of landscapes in places first visited come on strongly, the artist records them in photographs and then sketches in the studio. Even large works are first made small, around sizes No. 4 (33×21 cm) to No. 15 (65×50 cm), to clearly capture the artist's intent and then refined to fully bring out the original feeling on the canvas.
Kim Sang-gyeong's landscapes reflect universal human emotions. They have the power to embrace even the "sad fear" of crossing from the living boundary into the realm of death. Landscapes imbued with the artist's spirit are also self-portraits. Viewers feel a desire to travel far along the mountain slopes where Kim Sang-gyeong has walked into the canvas and carved a path.
Kim Sang-gyeong's landscapes are within the canvas frame, but their aim is vast. The colors surge and overflow as if alive and moving. If David Hockney, the living myth of contemporary art, painted waves of light upon returning to his native Yorkshire in England, Kim Sang-gyeong painted the energy of the earth, the "mother's womb" of all things in the world.
The "girl and lehua" and "blue forest and boy" series blend nature, animals, and humans into a single community, set against Jeju's Gotjawal and Geomun Oreum, and Hawaii's ʻōhiʻa lehua.
Religious philosopher Martin Buber (1878–1965) said, "Every journey has a secret destination of which the traveler is unaware." The teaching is that "there is no Wooyeon in any journey or encounter; within it there is inevitably a spiritual task we must fulfill."
For Kim Sang-gyeong, travel itself is an endeavor to study form, obtain color, and find the pulse for continuity of work. Jeju Island and Hawaii are not merely geographic spaces and subjects for works, but "existential events" where Kim faces the self.
The exhibition, focused mostly on new works, will run from Apr. 28 to May 16, 2026, at Gallery DOO in Cheongdam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, and admission is free.
Kim Sang-gyeong graduated from the Department of Western Painting at Seoul National University's College of Fine Arts and the same university's graduate school (printmaking major). Including this "Time of the blue forest" exhibition, there have been a total of 26 solo exhibitions. Works are in the collections of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Art Bank (2017, 2021, 2024), Cheonan Branch Court, Jeju District Prosecutors' Office, Korean Medical Association headquarters, Jeju National Agricultural Cooperative Federation headquarters, and Blue Pine GC Pocheon.
◆ Exhibition information
Period: 2026. 04. 28 (Tue) ~ 2026. 05. 16 (Sat)
Venue: Gallery DOO Gallery DOO