WOO KUKWON

b.1976, South Korea

 

A graduate from the Tokyo Designer Gakuin College in 2003, Woo Kukwon currently lives and works in Seoul. His work focuses on the gap between reality and fantasy, working mainly with oil paints as well as drawings on paper and installations.

 

Woo was exposed to the heavy subject of life and death at a far too early age, pushing him to escape from reality and into the fantasy-filled story world. After growing up, he discovered the cruelty hidden behind seemingly beautiful fairy tales, enabling him to re-interpret the world from a new perspective, and driving him to investigate for answers in philosophy and religion. In the same vein, the Three “Bs” (Beautiful, Baby, Best) always coexist with the death motif in his works. The equivocal co-existence of reality and fantasy called upon by the artist aims to seek truth in fairy tales, humour in philosophy and freedom in the bible.

 

Woo's early works mainly consisted of roughly scratched paintings, expressing the raw dangers of a wandering ego. His more recent works evolved into a more stable form expressed through the build-up of thick layers of paint into a rich material. Woo Kukwon's work combines cruel fairy tale scenes and roughly scribbled famous sayings with his natural gift of colour, creating a unique genre that mixes Pop Art and Figurative Art.

 

Woo is a promising artist who was selected as one of the 20 artists for the 32nd JoongAng Fine Arts Prize, which is one of Korea's most important awards. He has held numerous solo exhibitions since 2009. His art piece has been collected at Culture Convenience Club, a Japanese company that operates Tsutaya, a nationwide bookstore in Japan. Furthermore, his paintings have been collected at various museums in Korea, such as the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul National University Museum of Art, etc.

 

His selected solo exhibitions include “The black humor of fairy tales,” The Hendrik Christian Andersen House Museum, Rome,(Italy, 2025) ;“My Universe,” Tang Contemporary Art, Seoul, (Korea, 2024); “Once Upon Her Time,” Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing, (China, 2023); “Killing me Softly,” 313 Art Project, Seoul (Korea, 2022); “Carnival,” Tang Contemporary Art, Hong Kong (China, 2022); “I’m your father,” Noblesse Collection, Seoul (Korea, 2021); “It’s The Hard Knock Life,” Gallery BK, Seoul (Korea, 2021); “JEREMIAH WAS A BULLFROG,”  LOTTE Gallery Avenuel, Seoul (Korea, 2020), etc. Recent selected group exhibitions include “Art Basel,” The Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, Hong Kong (China, 2023); “Art Genève,” Tang Contemporary Art, Geneva (Switzerland, 2023); “Taipei Dangdai,” Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, Taipei (Taiwan, 2023);  “Art Busan,” BEXCO Exhibition Center, Busan (Korea, 2023); “Mille Cortex,” Tang Art Foundation (Hong Kong, 2023); “Mickey Mouse Now and Future,” Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul (Korea, 2022); “L'Empire des sens,” Tang Contemporary Art, Seoul (Korea, 2022); “The Forties: Alluring Moments“, Gallery Joeun, Seoul (Korea, 2021); “Brave New Gaze: Vision, Gaze, and Start”, ATELIER AKI, Seoul (Korea, 2020);“Age of 40s: You were enchanted”, Gallery Joeun, Seoul (Korea, 2020); “Dialogue”, ATELIER AKI, Seoul, (Korea, 2020) etc.