Page 32 - 권숙자 개인전 2025. 10. 1 – 11. 15 권숙자안젤리미술관

Ideal Realm of the Imagistic Landscape

Kim In-hwan Art Critic

It was [The Chosen Path].
The path the painter Kwon Sook-ja walks, and the path she must walk.

Just like the artistic awakening (開眼) of all painters, this artist’s world of work appears to have started from an interest
in everyday objects. From there, her vision broadened one step further into the vaster, wider, and more expansive
world called [Nature]. This awakening to a subject area must have stemmed from a small, accidental experience. The
scene she encountered on a village hill beside the Nakdong River during a summer break in her school days—call it a
[Scene of snow piled white on a pine tree] or her gaze being drawn to a [Flock of long-necked white birds]—is where
it began.

She sings of that scene in a poem of her heart. However, it must be in transferring it to the canvas that she truly found
joy. The artist pours all her devotion into this chosen path—the realm of painting. She somewhat calms the literary
nature that secretly wells up inside her and nimbly accumulates energy into her more resilient painting process. The
resulting works, as the artist articulated in her own writing, aspire to be the [lofty solitude (孤高) and peace that comes
from being free from all things when one becomes one with nature].

“[My canvas was a long journey, searching for a field of peace, a place where one could leave the swamp of sorrow
that humans feel.]”

The artist does not accept nature merely as an object to be privately observed and enjoyed. She seeks value and
meaning in it that are not immediately visible, and she has a mindset of trying to fathom the deep significance of
nature as an entity of salvation. The earnest desire to immerse herself in nature is truly settled deep in her heart, rising
up as the resonance in her work, to the extent that she moved her residence to a rural village [to gain a birthplace (産
室) for new thought], escaping the complex urban environment.

We can gauge the artist’s initial work through the exhibition she presented years ago (in ‘84).

In her extremely detailed, descriptive works using traditional vessels as subjects, one could discern the artist’s skill
based on her foundational technique. However, the artist has since eschewed such descriptiveness and transformed
into a painter of landscapes and still lifes with condensed compositions, their forms outlined by bold, strong contours.
While the subject matter still revolves around natural objects and visible artifacts, the attempt at intentional change
is evident.

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