Kim Taek sang was born in Seoul, Korea in 1958. Took B.F.A. at College of Fine Art, Chungang University, Seoul in 1985 and M.F.A. at College of Fine Art, Hongik University, Seoul in 1987. Currently living in Ilsan, near Seoul. He consistently has exhibitions in Korea, basically in Seoul and also outside of Korea. Tradition of Monochrome painting
Monochrome painting, which became active from 1970's, forms the mainstream and is regarded as an important tendency in contemporary art in Korea. Many artists who started to work in 1990's have experience to study in Europe or United States and therefore monochrome painting itself shows various development in material and technique these days. He himself has no experience to study abroad, through the communication with those artists in his same generation, Kim Taek sang has been sought his identity as a Korean artist, deepened his thought and made effort to establish the originality of his works. Trace of Nature
Kim Taek sang is regarded as a colorist painter. In order to get a full understanding of his work, however, we have to know about the process of making his works. He does not use any brush, painting knife or palette. He always smiles gently, saying "I paint with water". To put it more precisely, he let water, gravity of earth, nature to paint. First he makes a rectangular pool filled with water. Then soaks the unstretched canvas into this pool and pour water mixed with acrylic paint. The water slowly evaporates leaving its traces on the canvas. Temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure, season and weather make the difference and variation in those traces. In this process, the only one thing the artist has to do is to wait. After the certain period of time, Kim Taek sang drains the water and takes the canvas out from the pool, then puts the canvas on the wall to dry. He repeats this process over and over with the same canvas, overlapping the colors in many layers. Painting by Time
Kim Taek sang's work is thus actual traces of water and it contains passage of time, just same as the rings of tree. All he has to do is to arrange the conditions of materials for the passage of time and nature to reveal themselves in the visible form to us. Color of Nature
For Kim Taek sang, using color is originally just a device to visualize the passage of time, season or nature on the canvas. If only with the transparent water, it is impossible for the artist to make those to be seen. The colors he uses are from nature; red from setting sun, blue from ocean or sky, green from trees, yellow from sun. Created deliberately with plenty of time, covered with soft and gentle colors, his works give the sense or notion of "maturity" or "ripeness" to the viewer. He is now recognized as a very important artist in the field of monochrome painting in Korea, participating in the exhibition "Korean Contemporary Art - To Have or To Be" traveling to Dublin, Lisbon and Hong Kong this year, and "Simply Beautiful" traveling to Switzerland and France in 2006, both introducing Korean Contemporary Art to audience out of Korea. This installation at taguchi fine art, ltd. is the second occasion of his one person show in Japan. Last time the show consisted of red color paintings. This time his recent experimental works which has rainbow color, using several different colors. * The text above provided by taguchi fine art.