Sungsic Moon captures 'life' in all its 'mediocre' forms

Arts & Design

Published: 24 Jan. 2022, 14:08 Updated: 24 Jan. 2022, 14:16

Sungsic Moon captures 'life' in all its 'mediocre' forms

″Sad Ending″(2021) by Sungsic Moon is now on view at Kukje Gallery's Busan branch. [KUKJE GALLERY]

BUSAN — Sungsic Moon, 41, a Korean artist particularly popular among young art lovers including K-pop sensation BTS’s RM, started his new solo show that centers around his so-called “oil drawing” works at Kukje Gallery’s Busan branch on Friday.

The title of the exhibition is “life,” because most of the works on view depict scenes of everyday life which are never dramatic and are just “mediocre” according to Moon, such as his garden full of plants, his cat and buildings near his home among others.

They are depicted in “oil drawing,” which involves “a unique process where the artist carves directly into the impasto surface, capturing intensity and depth, focusing on the minutest detail,” according to the gallery. He covers a small canvas with a kind of paste, then covers it with oil paints in light colors and then scratches and draws directly onto the oil paint before it has completely dried. For these drawings, he does not use perspective, so that every detail could be shown equally.

"I always think about why and how we are here, but I can't find an answer because we are just a speck of dust in the universe [...] Out of curiosity, I draw fragments of the world exposed to me,” Moon said in a press preview at the gallery on Friday. “I draw things sometimes because they are beautiful, sometimes because they are dry and crumbling and sometimes because they are meaningful. When I meet the world, I draw things that catch my heart."

The artist also said, “Pencils have no decorative qualities and are the most basic material. And the act of drawing a line has been an old practice since the beginning of mankind. So I thought it [pencil drawing] is the most suitable and minimal material for frankly revealing my thoughts. On the wet oil in a semi-jelly state, all the traces I make (with a pencil) are fixed, proving that I was in front of this canvas. My habits and even my feelings when I was drawing are recorded.”

The series ″A Mediocre Landscape : Earth Landscape″(2021) by Sungsic Moon is now on view at Kukje Gallery's Busan branch. [KUKJE GALLERY]

The exhibition also includes 10 oil drawing works from Moon's “A Mediocre Landscape: Earth Landscape” series which were previously presented at the 2021 Jeonnam International SUMUK Biennale held in the southwestern port city of Mokpo and “The Middle Land: When Time Unfolds into a Land” exhibition at Arko Art Center in Seoul.

They depict Towangseong Falls at Mount Seorak in Gangwon in a unique style that is reminiscent of both traditional East Asian ink paintings of landscapes and Western woodblock prints at the same time. “I was inspired by the simplification and modern interpretation of nature in the ink painting ‘Bagyeon Falls’ by Jeong Seon (1676-1759),” Moon said. “Abstraction has the power of transcending time.”

The exhibition runs through Feb. 28. Admission is free.

BY MOON SO-YOUNG [moon.soyoung@joongang.co.kr]