Kim Byungkwan is a painter from Seoul, Korea, who paints vibrant portraits of iconic Hollywood starlets with acrylic on paper.
Kim Byungkwan is graduated from the Department of Painting, Hansung University (BFA). He states that his work is trying to destroy, tear up, and reconstruct this habitual vision so that our vision can be expanded to other images.
Kim is known for his series of recognizable figures where the scribbles and smears balance the well-known fairness.
"What I would like to express through my work is very simple. I am trying to bring out strangeness from familiarity (visual habit)."
Kim Byungkwan
How would he define himself as an artist? Outsider! His journey with art started once he was 16. He was shocked by watching a documentary about Rembrandt. Nowadays he is passionate about Caravaggio. Kim feels a sublime from his artworks which expresses the light and darkness and composition by paints.
The artist is not related to any particular art and method of creation. He wants to stay being creative to be able to paint an unfamiliar world that never visualized before. He is getting inspiration are coming from images found by accident on the Internet.
I want to show the world that never completed perfectly but collapsing beautifully.
For Kim everything there is out there in this world, more or less, provides us a familiar vision. This familiar vision can be replaced as a habit. The habitual vision or visual habit makes us go by the routine ways which stop us from having an adventure.
My work is trying to destroy, tear up, and reconstruct this habitual vision so that our vision can be expanded to other images. I have strong faith in my work that my personal behavior may lead us.
kimbyungkwan
How does he work?
The artist is passionate about the whole process. He's never in a hurry. He's not planning. He is open to the world around him. He waits and draws from the environment. The painting comes to him by itself. An un-intended image shakes his mind and forces him to paint them without any reason.
Asked how would your life change if you were no longer allowed to create art he said: No art, no more unstable life. I would have a normal job working every day like normal people, which is not bad, I think.
klassikmagazine
