Daejin Kang

Solo Exhibitions

2023 18th Solo Exhibition (Insa Art Plaza / Seoul)

2023 17th Solo Exhibition (Hyu Gallery / Busan)

2022 16th Solo Exhibition (Picasso Gallery / Busan)

2018 15th Solo Exhibition (Insa Art Center / Seoul)

2018 14th Solo Exhibition (Easel Gallery / Busan)

2018 13th Solo Exhibition (Kim Soo Jung Art Space / Busan)

2017 12th Solo Exhibition (Insa Art Center / Seoul)

2017 11th Solo Exhibition (Somin Art Center / Busan)

2016 10th Solo Exhibition (Yoonseul Museum of Art / Gimhae)

2015 9th Solo Exhibition (Haeun Art Gallery / Busan)

2014 8th Solo Exhibition (Centum Gallery / Busan)

2011 7th Solo Exhibition (Gyeongin Museum of Art / Seoul)

2010 6th Solo Exhibition (Tongyeong Government Building / Gyeongnam)

2008 5th Solo Exhibition (Haeundae Cultural Center / Busan)

2007 4th Solo Exhibition (Lotte Gallery / Busan)

2005 3rd Solo Exhibition (Gyeongin Museum of Art / Busan)

2004 2nd Solo Exhibition (Busan Ilbo Gallery / Busan)

2003 1st Solo Exhibition (Busan Ilbo Gallery / Busan)

Group Exhibitions

2023

Art Miami Context (One Herald Plaza / Miami)

KIAF (COEX / Seoul)

2023

Korea Galleries Art Fair (COEX / Seoul)

Silk Road Exhibition (Fuzhou, China)

Busan Painting Festival (Busan Cultural Center)

Young-Honam Exchange Exhibition (Busan City Hall Gallery)

Donghaeng Exhibition (Fukuoka, Japan)

Participated in over 50 art fairs worldwide / over 200 group exhibitions in total

Others

Served as Judge, Busan Art Exhibition

Artwork featured in Korea Asset Management Corporation Calendar

Kang Daejin's work 〈The King's Garden〉 makes you feel the sublime. It seems to tell many stories that can not be expressed in words, and although it is figurative, it is not different from abstraction. Until about 10 years ago, he painted rural landscapes he experienced as a child, such as <Into the Time of Longing>. Of course, he visited not only his hometown, but also remote villages in Gangwon-do and Gyeongsangbuk-do, drawing quiet rural landscapes. Critic Park Youngjae (Tongmyong University) described him as an 'artist taking a walk in a remote village'. I think that's a great idea. But why did he walk like that?

Kang Daejin moved to Busan with his parents at a young age before entering elementary school. It would not have been easy for him to adjust to a new environment with no friends to play with. Although he showed talent for painting from his childhood, he focused more on painting from this time on. For him, painting is a way to meet friends from his hometown of his age, and it must have been a good way to soothe his lonely heart. So, like Marc Chagall(1887~1985), he could not forget his hometown, mountains and streams, and must have 'walked in remote villages' in search of such landscapes. Relatives who were unaware of his struggles did not hesitate to say that he was a genius after seeing his paintings. General viewers also praised his paintings at every exhibition, but perhaps no one understood his feelings. But why did he suddenly focus on the ‘blue pine tree painting’, 〈The King's Garden〉?

First, what kind of tree is a pine tree? Pine tree is a tree that is so familiar to Korean and respected by everyone as there is a saying 'from birth to grave'. How could they have personified the pine tree and even gave it a government post, and called it “that pine tree on top of Namsan Mountain” in the national anthem! Just as Chusa Kim Jeong-hui(1786~1856) of the Joseon Dynasty drew a pine tree in his <Sehando>, people in the past compared their situation to a pine tree and sang deep sympathy and affection, and writers tried to learn a noble spirit from the figure of a pine tree. There are many artists who are attracted to these pine trees, and he can be considered as one of them, but he is not.

Kang Daejin's 'Blue Pine Tree <The King's Garden〉 is not their 'familiar pine tree'. It is not the kind of pine that writers in the past talked about, nor is it the famous pine tree that was given a government post by thinking of pine trees as human beings. The pine trees he painted are the pine trees he experienced in the pine forest of the Royal Tomb of Gyeongju, the green pine forest that he felt sacred and holy, and he sculpted them on canvas.

Kang Daejin has a different technique, different intention, and his work has a different feel. In other words, if other artists' pine tree works are character development, his one is very different in that he aims for the sublime.

What Kang Daejin paid attention to the aura felt in the pine tree trunk(leaves) and pine forest. Pine trees have nothing without extraordinary in their leaves, stems, and roots. But foremost among them is the trunk(leaves). When a pine tree grows, all kinds of environments it encounters are revealed here.

Kang Daejin uses a knife to bring out the texture of the trunk of a pine tree. That is, the mixture of acrylic and stone powder is made into a three-dimensional shape using a knife. Repeat this task until he is satisfied (3~4 or more times). Of course, pine needles are also done in the same way. It does not end with this, but paints three or more times and knives again to complete the three-dimensional shape. Most of his works are masterpieces of more than No. 200(No. 1 is approximately 22.7cm x 12~16cm), and he works from around 1:00 pm to 2:00~3:00 am the next day. It is a painstaking work that usually takes 40 to 50 days to complete a piece.

The pine trees of Kang Daejin are ‘blue’. Blue has various symbols and meanings. It is a mysterious color that can express feelings such as positivity and negativity, an immeasurable pond, melancholy and hope.

There is a reason why the pine trees of Kang Daejin are blue. There are many royal tombs in Gyeongju, and there is a pine forest around the royal tombs. He went to the pine forest around the royal tomb of Namsan Mountain in Gyeongju one day in the foggy morning to sketch pine trees. At this time, mysteriously, the pine tree appeared blue. He is said to have been attracted to blue as if he had received a revelation here. For the next 10 years or so, He is said to have been concentrating on the work of 〈The King's Garden〉, a work of blue pine trees, by making use of the feeling of that time. Even now, He recalls that time and said, “The king’s garden did not look like a simple pine forest, nor did I think of it. I felt like I was walking in the garden under the illusion that I had become a king, such as the pine trees that looked like people.” And he reproduces the feeling of that time with a work called “The King’s Garden”.

Kang Daejin's work <The King's Garden> is unique not only in blue but also in format. As you can see in the picture, drawing only the trunk of the pine tree without drawing the entire pine tree seems like a meticulous calculation. It may be to give the viewer the feeling that they are in the same position as he in the forest. And the characteristic of the pine tree is to emphasize that it is the trunk, and the upper part of the pine tree is omitted to enhance the 'sublime' effect by increasing the imagination, and the effect is prominent. And the curvaceous beauty of the trunk of a pine tree, the beauty of overlapping curves and curves, makes us imagine another aesthetic.

Kang Daejin's work <The King's Garden> has an aura. The longer you look at it, the more you feel the mystery, the energy of a king, the power between heaven and earth, hope, and desire that can not be expressed in words. In other words, His works <The King's Garden> are a good work that makes you realize what the sublime(such as the feeling of trying to reproduce the unreproducible) is.

• National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea

• National Maritime Museum

• Toyota Motor Corporation

• Busan Western District Office

• Anguk Seonwon (Zen Center)

• Hanwha YANASE Co., Ltd.

• Hyupsung G7 Apartment

• Geumgang Art Museum

• Dureraum Apartment

• Samjeong Green Core

• And Many Others