〈Mt. Geumgang Arariyo〉

Shin Jang-sik's solo exhibition at Gallery Minjung, held from April 27 to May 8, 2022. The exhibition centers on five new paintings from 2021, continuing the artist's 〈Mt. Geumgang series〉 developed since his first tour of the mountain in 1998.

The five 2021 paintings sustain and deepen the formal vocabulary of the artist's true-view (jingyeong sansu) 〈Mt. Geumgang series〉. 〈Spring of Manmulsang, Mt. Geumgang〉 and 〈Summer of Manmulsang, Mt. Geumgang〉 (each 194 × 91 cm), together with 〈Manmulsang, Mt. Geumgang〉 (91 × 50 cm) and 〈Gwaneum-yeonbong, Mt. Geumgang〉 (91 × 50 cm), revisit the Outer Geumgang's Manmulsang region — the peaks and seasons to which the artist has returned repeatedly. 〈Cheonhwadae, Mt. Geumgang〉 (194 × 91 cm) is a new painting of the same peak (Cheonhwadae) treated in 〈The Light at Cheonhwadae Peaks, Mt. Geumgang〉, the artist's work shown in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's 2018 special exhibition 〈Diamond Mountains: Travel and Nostalgia in Korean Art〉. Formally, all five works employ acrylic on canvas (with hanji layering in selected works), spider-web-like brisk lines, and a palette anchored in traditional obangsaek (the five directional colors) — the painterly language the artist has developed since the 1990s. Art critic Choi Tae-man has placed the artist's Geumgang series within the lineage of mountain paintings sent to China as gifts since the Goryeo period and surveyed by Jeong Seon and Choe Buk in the Joseon, reading the present body of work as inscribing the temporal grain of "here and now" through a soft bluish radiance (瑞氣) (2018, 〈Painting the Twelve Scenes of 'Here and Now' Mt. Geumgang〉).

The artist has worked in printmaking alongside painting throughout his career. He served as art director of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, where he designed the cheongsachorong lantern performance, and received the Grand Prize at the 1989 Korea National Art Exhibition for the woodblock print 〈Arirang — Happy Day〉 depicting that scene. From 2017 to 2019 he served as president of the Korean Contemporary Printmakers' Association. Painting and printmaking have run in his practice not as separate media but as two registers in which the same imagery is worked through.

Extending that medium, two new woodblock prints reinterpret signature paintings of the artist in the same compositions. 〈Mt. Geumgang from Sangpaldam〉 (2021, woodblock print, 70 × 30 cm) is the print version of the 2001 canvas of the same title (681 × 181 cm, in the collection of the Government Art Bank, MMCA, and installed in the Peace House meeting room during the April 27, 2018 inter-Korean summit). 〈The Light at Cheonhwadae Peaks, Mt. Geumgang〉 (2021, woodblock print, 71 × 38 cm) is the print version of the 2014 painting (98 × 64 cm) shown in the Met's 〈Diamond Mountains〉 special exhibition mentioned above. Soyoung Lee, Curator of Korean Art at The Met, described the original painting as capturing "the brilliant sunlight reflecting off the snow-covered peaks" (Met Perspectives, 2018).