Kang Seok Ho

Kang Seok Ho's early works in the mid 90s concentrate on texture and color, representing his unique experiments in “distancing from the subject and getting closer to the surface of the canvas.” Despite being categorically aligned with figurative painting, his work did not leave room for narratives related to the images. His method of tapping the brush in thin paint and building up layers strives toward abstraction, the act of making and thinking becoming a singular act.

In his “Gesture” series, exhibited at Kang’s solo exhibition at Seoul’s Brain Factory in November 2008, Kang shifted his subject matter by depicting monochrome figures taken from 100-minute long debates that had been broadcasted on television or current affairs magazines. During the exhibition period, the works were presented like a relay, displaying one piece each day. Therefore, only audiences who could visit the exhibition consecutively for 18 days would have the experience of seeing the entire exhibition. From his “Couple Series,” which shows a close-up of one eye from two people, to the “Nude” series that focuses on various skin tones and textures, to a series that unravels the imagination of infinite time and space through still life, Kang has continued dedicating himself to painting in the most traditional sense of the word. 

Operating also as a curator, Kang Seok Ho has organized several exhibitions to question if a Korean painterly language exists in painting by Korean artists. Exhibitions he curated include “Korean Painting: About Photography” (2011) and “Korean Painting: About Manners” (2012). In addition, Kang Seok Ho often used his own writing as introductory text for his own solo and curated exhibitions. Since Kang Seok Ho’s attitude towards the everyday is inextricably linked to the aesthetic of his paintings, his writings serve as an important foundation for understanding his inner world. 

Kang Seok Ho received his Bachelors of Fine Art in sculpture at Seoul National University, then left for Germany to study with Jan Dibbets (b. 1941) at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he received his Masters of Fine Art in painting. After winning the UBS Art Award in Basel, Switzerland in 2000, he returned to Korea and won the Seoknam Art Prize (Seoul, Korea) in 2004, and he was the selected artist for "2008 Young Korean Artist: I AM AN ARTIST" by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. From 2003 to 2020, he held 16 solo exhibitions at Insa Art Space, Kumho Museum of Art, Mimesis Art Museum, etc., and passed away in an unexpected accident in 2021. Beyond his artistic practice, he was also a design furniture collector and a curator. In 2008, he organized a number of exhibitions, including “Utopia, From Ideal to Reality” at the Kumho Museum of Art and “Those who see this also think of it” at Art Space 3. Not separating his daily life and art, he led meetings to interact with fellow artists on the subjects of painting, books, music, hiking, and fishing. He taught as a professor at Seoul National University of Science and Technology from 2018 to 2021, and his first retrospective, “seok ho kang: Three Minute Delight” (2022-2023) was held at the Seoul Museum of Art in the first year after his death.