When Kang returned to Korea in the early 2000s, the Korean art scene at that time was defined by a multimedia, postmodern, socio-political aesthetic, leaning heavily into a post-genre and post-medium “anything goes” tendency. Kang Seok Ho did not pay attention to nor become wrapped up in this mindset. Even despite the advent of digital cameras and the overflow and saturation of digital images, Kang chose to focus on examining the relationship between the image and the act of its portrayal and how to widen the distance between the two entities. Admiring the attitudes of masters such as Piero della Francesca, Giorgione, Tintoretto, Titian, and Giorgio Morandi, Kang independently explored more traditional subject matter such as figurative, landscape, and still-life paintings, as well as other themes involving time and space.

The artist’s research on the act of seeing is further revealed in his series of drapes. While drapes are usually hung over windows covering the view, they also become stand in’s, replacing the outside scenery. The drapes that the artist looks at forms a horizon line along the simple color, pattern, and fabric of the canvas, transferred as the image itself. An image that does not seem to convey a direct message ultimately leads the viewer to keep returning to it, pondering the painting and the artist’s vision. In the case of his “Couple Series,” which shows a close-up of one eye from two people, it is the image that looks at the viewer, simultaneously interrogating and responding to them. In addition, his black and white “Gesture” series captures gestures of politicians and athletes exposed to the media, “Nude” series focuses on various skin tones and textures, as well as a still life study of stationary objects, and building up to his “Cube” series, Kang Seok Ho’s representative painting series are all an attempt to experiment and discover a new approach within the unique structure and confines of the genre of painting. 

The title of this exhibition “Deep is the rising sun, far is the falling one” was the subtitle of Kang Seok Ho’s essay “The Second Hiking”. The descriptions of his daily climbing route of Namsan Mountain, the traces of soil neatly swept, the colors of the light and sunset shining through the pine trees and the forest, is not too different from the experience of viewing Kang’s paintings. Since Kang Seok Ho’s attitude towards the everyday is inextricably linked to the aesthetic characteristic of his paintings, his writings that record his daily life serve as an important foundation for understanding his inner world.