Mongwoo Joseph Kim

Looking from Mongwoo Joseph Kim’s past works to the recent ones, one can feel a deep sense of Koreanness. The work of some twenty-five years shows why Kim agonized over, and found such joy in, painting an Eastern sensibility and the unseen inner life. The work gradually came to deal with the inner world and the self of the painter, widened into the self of a people, and came to carry thoughts running from one person’s happiness to the development and revival of a nation. As a result, paintings that are uniquely Kim’s, Eastern and Korean, about human happiness, harmony with nature and warm affection, began to take form.

Jose Diaz, a Spanish art collector who loves Korea, says of Mongwoo Joseph Kim: “The painting has reached a realm where the fragrance of Joseon lingers. Few people have hundreds of years of sensibility entirely contained within one person like this; the painter holds a fragrant intellect of antiquity and a supreme purity of feeling.” (Art historian Oh Jeong-yeop)

“When I paint, I do not set a purpose of what to paint. If I decide on a theme and paint, the painting does not come as my heart flows. When my heart is glad and I am seized by a longing to paint, the painting is made in joy. Until the painting is finished, I cannot predict what I am painting.” (From the artist’s note, Mongwoo Joseph Kim)