“Water Drops” (1992) displays the characteristics of all-over painting on which water spots smeared on the canvas and water drops formed on the surface unfold with no hierarchy throughout the canvas. The seemingly tangible water drops drawn in a hyperrealist manner do not in fact reflect the outer world, thus they are far from hyper-realistic representations. Juxtaposition of the traces of smeared water and the water drops formed on the surface presents the coexistence of different phases of time.
Kim Tschang-Yeul (b. 1929) studied painting at the institute of Lee Guk-jeon and the Seongbuk Painting Institute of Lee Quede, and later entered the Seoul National University’s College of Fine Arts in 1948, yet was not able to graduate due to the Korean War. Kim submitted his works at the 2nd Biennale de Paris in 1961 and the 8th Bienal de Sao Paulo in 1965, thereby gaining a profile in the international art community. Kim was invited by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1966 to reside in the US to study printmaking at the Art Students League of New York before settling in Paris in 1969. He has held his solo exhibitions at many galleries including the Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art, currently Wooyang Museum, Gyeongju, Korea, in 1994, the Jeu de Paume, Paris, in 2004, the Busan Museum of Art, Korea, in 2009, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in 2012, Gallery Hyundai in 2013, and the Gwangju Museum of Art, Korea, in 2014. He was the recipient of the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters in 1996 as well as the Silver Crown Order of Cultural Merit in 2012.
Kim Tschang-Yeul, known as the “water drops” artist, began his water drop works in the mid-1960s after settling in Paris. The first of these works was reportedly submitted to the Salon de Mai in 1972. Kim was one of the founding members of the Contemporary Artists Association, which led the collective appearance of the Art Informel in Korea. He often presented abstract works throughout the mid- to late-1960s, including the Informel-style paintings he displayed at the 2nd Biennale de Paris in 1961. Kim reflected sensitivity towards the times by expressing the tragedy of the Korean War and the desperation of helpless humans through non-figurative, rough surfaces; a representative work of which is “Rite” (1964). Since the late 1960s, works considered to prelude “Water Drops” were created, one example of which is “Untitled”(1969), under the possession of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, MMCA. Shining circles in various shapes fill the inside of the painting where curved lines overlap in multiple layers. “For Kim who hailed from Mangsan, South Pyongan Province, spring and water are the mediums for remembering his hometown,” said art critic Lee Yong Woo. And seems to hold the meaning of “water representing the purification of one’s spirit,” according to Hong Yun-lee. It is fair to say that Kim’s wounded spirit after the war and the canvases covered with dark, heavy paints of matiere, were cured and purified through the sublimation depicted in his clear water drop works. After drawing water drops on a copy of the magazine Le Figaro in 1975, water drops and letters began to appear in Kim’s works. He often used letters with formativeness such as the Thousand-Character Text and “displayed subtle yet extreme situation in which the letters―the device of memory―meet the forms of water drops that will soon evaporate,”according to Oh Kwang Soo.
