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‘Dana’(旦兒) Byung Jong Kim, Korea’s representative painter, is well-known for his unique painting style that encompasses the East and the West, the traditional and the modern.

Life
Born in 1953 in Namwon, Jeollabuk-do, Kim was admitted to the Department of Painting at College of Fine Arts, Seoul National University, and was awarded the Presidential Award at the National University Art Exhibition in 1979. Meanwhile, he made his debut by being awarded in the both fields of art criticism and playwriting at the Annual Spring Literary Contests at Dong-A and Joong-Ang Daily Newspapers in 1980. After receiving his master’s degree from the Seoul National University Graduate School, Kim was appointed as the youngest professor in the Department of Oriental Painting at Seoul National University in 1984. In year 2001, he was appointed as also the youngest Dean of College of Fine Arts. From 1992 to 2001, he studied at Sungkyunkwan University, earning his Ph.D. in Oriental Philosophy. In 2018, at the retirement ceremony of Seoul National University where he worked for 36 years, he delivered a representative speech among 46 retiring professors. Currently he is Emeritus professor at Seoul National University and Chair professor at Gachon University.

His major exhibitions include The Scattering Pine Pollen, Gana Art Center(2019), From Jesus the Fool to Song of Life, Seoul National University Museum of Art(2018), 生命之歌 Song of Life, Beijing Today Art Museum (2015), 30 Years of Kim Byung-jong – Drawing Life, Jeonbuk Museum of Art(2014), and he has held more than 20 solo exhibitions in Seoul, Beijing, Paris, Chicago, Brussels, Basel, Tokyo, and Berlin. He has participated in leading art fairs domestically and internationally in FIAC, Art Basel, Gwangju Biennale, Beijing International Art Biennale, and Triennale-India. He has received significant art awards including AnGyeon Art and Culture Grand Prize, the Proud Jeonbuk People Prize, the Green Order of Merit for Diligence, and the National Order of Korean Culture. His published books include Journey with the Painting Book 1-4, Munhakdongne(2014), and Chinese Painting Study, Seoul National Univesrity Press(1997). His works are in the collections of the British Museum, London, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, Seoul Museum of Art, and the Blue House Korea. In March 2018, Namwon Byung Jong Kim Art Museum opened in Namwon, Jeollabuk-do.

It is widely agreed that Byung Jong Kim conveys the unique spirit of Korean painting and the national self-conciousness and yet deploys modern expression that goes across media, thus leading the modernization and globalization of Korean paintings. His notable artworks include Jesus the Fool(1998~), Song of Life(1989~), The Scattering Pine Pollen(2016~), Wind and Bamboo(2017~). With extensive subject matters including flowers, trees, the portrait of Jesus, landscapes in travel destinations, memories from the childhood, pine pollen blowing with wind, and the scenery of bamboo forests, Kim articulates free, dynamic and diverse expressions. He is called ‘the life artist’ as his œuvre revolves around the theme of life, and his various works with nature as the theme show the sprouting vitality and poetic beauty in variegated ways. Another characteristic penetrating Kim’s works is the matière of its thick texture that can be seen on the painting’s surface. He has invented the method of painting applying various pigments and stone powder onto the thick surface of the canvas made out of Korean mulberry paper. His artworks often show his unique technique resembling Western relief or Eastern concavo-convex methods. Through these works, he goes beyond the conventional techniques of Oriental paintings or ancient highbrow techniques of Chinese paintings, and pursues his unique way of representation, seeking his individual and independent Korean modern painting by embodying the traditional aesthetics and the theories of Oriental paintings