“I don’t want to tie my paintings with a single fixed form. I want to set them free for the day in which today’s me will be different from tomorrow’s me. What is important is everything should be my own originality.” (Artist’s note)
He is a unique figure who puts spontaneously generated dialectic logic into practice, the contrasting elements such as the lunar and solar, positive and negative, and inside and outside. It shows that Kim Heung-soo maintains a dualistic view of the universe. (Kim Nam-soo, art critic)
Kim Heung-sou (1919-2014) debuted after being selected at the 16th Joseon Art Exhibition in 1937, and graduated from the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, currently Tokyo University of the Art, in 1944. Kim studied at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, Paris, in 1955 before becoming an official member of the Salon d’Automne in 1957. He served on the faculty of Seoul National University in 1952; the College of Education at Sungshin Women’s University in 1965; Moore College of Art & Design, Philadelphia, in 1967; and the University of Pennsylvania in 1969. Kim also served as a judge for many art awards including the National Art Exhibition of the Republic of Korea and the Lee Jung Seob Art Award. He served as a professor at Duksung Women’s University as well. Kim was the recipient of many awards including the prize awarded by the Vice-Ministry of National Defense at the 1952 War Correspondent Painters Exhibition; the May Literary Prize in 1962; the Grand Prize at the Korean Fine Arts Grand Prize Exhibition sponsored by Hankook-Ilbo in 1976; the Gold Crown Order of Cultural Merit in 1999; and the 50th National Academy of Arts Award in 2005.
The paintings of Kim Heung-sou often show a formative world that compares female nudity and geometric abstraction. In 1977, Kim asserted “Harmonism (Harmonime),” a formative philosophy pursuing harmony between opposite components and thus maximizing aesthetic quality, thereby declaring the aesthetics of his own works. His works centered around the concept of yin and yang, while organizing both figurative and abstract elements on one canvas in terms of methodology, thus developing Kim’s harmonistic art. Harmonistic art does not simply pursue the juxtaposition of figurative and abstract art, but rather the harmonious integration of opposing ideas such as yin and yang, male and female, light and shade, and concave and convex. On a boldly divided picture, the image of an erotic nude or a peaceful Buddhist statue appears as the figurative component, whereas divided space mostly comes as the abstract component. In addition, one of the most significant characteristics of Kim’s paintings is splendid colors. Especially strong variations of red often appear on his paintings, the frequent color choice resulting from Kim’s intention to create a strong image that suites a strong color like red. Despite such bold color choice, however, Kim Heung-sou’s paintings present a sense of harmony that fits well with Kim’s aesthetic agenda of Harmonism.
