Cho Yong-Ik Solo Show

Olivier Malingue Gallery opens its premises in the heart of Mayfair, London on the 5th of October. The inaugural exhibition is a solo show by Cho Yong-Ik.

On display will be a select number of works from each decade, which individually yet collectively illustrate how Cho Yong-Ik followed the Dansaekhwa ethos whilst adding elements of his own. The “Scratch Series” from the ’70s, for example, shows his rhythmic gesturing across the canvas, as he pressed off the top layer of paint with his bare thumb to reveal the alter undertone.

Whilst following at times the monochromatic painting values ascribed to by other Dansaekhwa artists, Cho Yong-Ik equally diverted from it, experimenting with dual tones of vivid reds, oranges and occasionally blues. Following through Cho Yong-Ik’s “Wave Series” of the ’80s and his later “Bamboo Series” of the ’90s, one continues to see this constant push and pull between the monochromatic tendencies of his peers and his more vivacious channeling of the techniques. For the “Waves Series” he delicately, yet with great physical exertion and in a single exhalation, whisked at the surface of each painting, creating minimalist, repeated yet ad hoc sweeps across the surface. Suggesting rather than depicting the sea or the ocean, the viewer at once senses it through the works’ gesturality, and is also left to complete the paintings’ pictorial equation both through their physical presence and gaze. Equally with the “Bamboo Series,” the leaves finely appear on the paper, revealing the textures of the materials used. Whereas the image of the bamboo itself is minimalist, two-dimensional and nearly naive, the quality of execution gives the entire series a textural sense of three-dimensionality.