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| Kim Sun-woo's "Paradise" (2022) / Courtesy of Gana Art |
By Park Han-sol
Rising artist Kim Sun-woo's scenes of mountains punctuated by thick forests and water roaring through deep ravines are, in a way, reminiscent of traditional Korean landscape paintings. But there's one alien element that remains prominent in his dreamlike vistas ― the dodo.
His latest series of 21 paintings will be on display at the Gana Art Center's upcoming exhibition, "Paradise," in central Seoul, from Jan. 27 to Feb. 27.
Often referred to as "the artist of dodo," Kim has, for years, featured the extinct flightless bird in his works as a visual substitute for modern humans.
Once native to the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean with no apparent predators, these animals gradually lost the ability to fly as an adaptation to escape.
"As people of today settle for the reality they mistake as paradise and start plucking out their feathers of freedom one by one, they come to resemble the dodo," he stated.
But in Kim's paintings, the birds become more than just a somber reproduction of present-day reality. Some of them are marching toward an unknown destination against all odds, while others are riding the violent blue wave like the one depicted in the famed Katsushika Hokusai's woodblock print, "The Great Wave off Kanagawa."
It's a message of hope and freedom told in an oddly endearing way.
The 34-year-old artist has recently made his name known as his paintings, both in physical formats and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), have begun to gain traction among younger collectors in local auctions.
