Artist Information
First art-educated in Japan, Kwon Young-Woo came back to Seoul to study art formally. During the Korean War, he was a member of “Arts For Army” and “Artists in the Army,” where he painted posters and other war-related paraphernalia. After the war, he was purposely trying to escape the traditions of Asian painting however. He studied East Asian art at Seoul National University. What he decided to keep in his artistic practice while withdrawing himself from tradition was the use of Korean paper. Like Chung Chang-Sup and other Dansaekhwa artists, Hanji signified something fundamental to Korean society, or rather Oriental society. His primary concern with his painting was how to cope with the dichotomy between modern esthesia and Asian art. In other words, Kwon tirelessly worked on the methods on which to preserve the modern aesthetic in Asian art. He stated “I simply did not want to follow the stereotype works done by all artists learning ‘Asian painting.’ I could not help feeling it banal not meeting with contemporary world.”

Artwork Information
Kwon’s obsession with Korean paper and consequent experient with it began about early 1960s. By discarding the “method of drawing” and adopted “creating” physical substance pure out of paper was to diverged from the the tradition for him. There is no canvas support. He made the “support” by adding several sheets of Hanji, and aesthetically harm the surface--puncturing, scratching, tearing and etc, almost like performative work that was done by Gutai artists from Japan after postwar. This method was to preserve the tradition all the while discarding the fundamental devices for Asian art which are ink brush and - to stress the structure of the surface-emphasizing the materiality of Hanji. This method is especially effective due to the three-dimensionality that reveals its multiple layers.

His work is an ongoing process--no tear he creates in the paper is the same, nor will ot absorb paint in the same way. Kwon said that part of creating the work is up to chance. His paintings are ongoing works, continuously being converted into a complete state because there is not a predetermined path toward what the painting will look like. This idea of chance is similar to another Dansaekhwa artist Chung Chang-Sup, who also demanded the chance in his painting of which that traverse the distinctive differences between the creator and creation. The body that performs the action onto the surface of the work becomes united with the object, providing a some extent of indexical quality. In other words, it is effort to put himself, the ego, and his individuality/subjectivity as well as “ongoing record of the present,” transmitted into the work of art, with the material of Hanji that is so spiritual and transcendental because of its cultural origins.

Later he started to produce works of which material used are mixture of ink and gouache. A number of Korean papers are atop so that seeps can seeps into the paper and fades as it extends. Like Chung Chang-Sup’s works, the work is being created on his own, Kwon is not determining where the seeps are heading or how it will be absorbed into the surface. He stopped naming his works in 1962, insteading using ordinal numbers, indicating their place within a given year. This was a representation of the repetition/serialism in the work he was creating. “To Kwon young-woo, the essential task is to let pieces of paper to live with other pieces of paper. Korean traditional paper has its unique texture and carries its own life. The white piece of paper connotes the possibility toward the state of ‘innocence.’ To him, the actions reveal the inborn life of the paper and let it be an individual ‘state of painting’ on its own.

20 HO