This paper is a study on the formative characteristics of Kim Hwan Ki' painting. Kim Whan Ki born in 1913, was the artist who showed the vigorous action in the modern and present art history of Korea. He is the pioneer of abstract art in Korea painting circles had unique characteristics different from the works of western abstract art pioneers. In New York, his art was at its peak, one of the existing concrete images was replaced by the continuous square frames and alignment of points. Kim Whan Ki expressed Korean lyricism by using the single color-field of dots, which became a turning point in Korean modernism and influenced the monochrome trend at the time.
To distinguish the period of our modern and contemporary art, it can be divided into the period of the Japanese colonial rule and the post-liberation period. In terms of the acceptance of overseas art, the art culture that Japanese international students learned during the Japanese colonial era had many colonial twists and turns.
On the other hand, in the process of fierce self-identification during the Korean War and liberation, direct contact and exchange with the West is not a simple dimension of the transplantation of advanced culture, but the subjective acceptance of pioneers who try to fuse the Western ones while inheriting their own tradition strong. At the forefront, he explored semi-abstract and abstract composition with various experimental spirits, and that it was the artist Kim Whan Ki who Koreanized Western modernism in the process of challenging the center of the international art. I want a direct look at his painting world and artistic life in more detail, it was motive to me.
The roots of Kim Whan Ki's paintings are rooted in the abstract art encountered in studying abroad in Tokyo, the traditional art to find one's identity, and the vivid national era. The development of his paintings was very organic and fluid. He showed a willingness to abstract through the influence of Cubism.
According to the situation of the times, he went on the path of anti-abstraction, seeking visualization of traditional elements by confirming his identity. He said that the painting of the times and the agenda of the times have changed, and that the new expression style is due to the character and consciousness of the times.
There were two trends in Korean abstract art. One is the experimental activity of a small number of avant-garde artists who were active in the mainstream of the Japanese art movement that originated in the 1930s. Another one is the various avant-garde expression activities of a group of artists that were institutionally formed through ideology after liberation. It is the peculiarity of art expression according to the special Korean situation. Such specificity reached Kim Whan Ki' uniqueness.
Therefore Kim Whan Ki located at the final point of the manifestation of one's own uniqueness. achieved an unique formative art of full ignition of pure abstract style in New York, the mecca of world art. He gaind international universality in negotiations with contemporary art. I felt a sublime sense of awe at the abstract world of Kim Whan Ki, who expressed the infinite universe and nature full of visibility with a deep and profound blue light and a minimal formative element called 'dot', a fusion of personality and oriental spirit.
When Kim Whan Ki's early a painter, Kim Whan Ki was said an artist who studies modern things and had a sensibility to digest modern times. In the later years of Kim Whan Ki's New York period, he was reviewed for being sublimated into an oriental and cosmic mystery through adaptation to nature and learning about its operating order. His artist's consciousness was the professional consciousness that identified the times and circumstances around art with his constitution, and that he was also his own artistic motivation. It can be said that after realizing it, he produced a work that was transformed into a world-class formative language.
It has been proved in all of his studies and analysis. The inner necessity that consistently appears in Kim Whan Ki's work is based on the underlying romanticism and is based on his noble, pure, and lyrical humanity. His painting world was an endless process to find and express his own uniqueness, that is, Korean identity. He constantly led personal research and group activities in avant-garde dimension to become aware of the national position and role of his time. He wanted the interest and admiration for the innocent and eternal to penetrate the nation and the times, and to sublimate it into a work of art.
Therefore, the completion of his own formative world was not only his own achievement, but also became the axis of the consciousness of the times. And it was a guide to the path that Korean art should take in terms of the succession of tradition and the fusion of contemporary art. Around 50 years passed away, the artistry of his paintings is being separated from the elements of individuality, period style, and ethnicity, and is required to go through the process of pure and eternal artistic development.