Oh Sufan (b. 1946) received his bachelor’s degree from the Department of Painting at Seoul National University and master’s degree from the Department of Education at Dongguk University. He participated in various group exhibitions and art fairs at home and abroad including “Painting of Korean Contemporary Art,” “Korea-China-Japan Contemporary Art Exhibition,” and Art Basel. He is a professor emeritus in the Contemporary Art Department at Seoul Women’s University.
Oh Sufan first encountered Eastern thought through his calligrapher father and was deeply influenced by it. He observed that the pillar of Eastern thought was harmony and unity with nature and that they are best manifested in pre-civilization society, or the primitive state. To him, primitiveness is a pure society that follows the order of nature without any human interference and where humanity lives in communion with nature. Therefore, it is only natural for him to explore “humanity in primitive state and instinctive freedom.” When it comes to producing his art, he never follows any unnatural control, like certain rules or forms. He simply lets the colors on the brush or his own hands find their way in a completely liberated state. All his works―“The God of Valley” from the early 1990s, “Tranquility” from the mid-to-late 1990s, and “Variation” from the 2000s―were created this way. He recently proclaimed: “My ultimate goal is to express a world of goodness free from greed.” In fact, he once produced a painting inspired by the scribbles of his three-yearold granddaughter, a pure existence never exposed to greed.
