"To the child left in the dark room - I gave a small star."
Gallery Afternoon is pleased to present ⟨BLUMINOUS⟩, a solo exhibition by Kim Seul-gi (b.1990) from September 3 to October 29. All exhibition halls will be dedicated to exhibiting Kim’s works during the exhibition period.
Kim Seul-gi completed her formal training in painting at Baekseok University in 2014. By 2019, she was painting full-time. Her works quickly caught the art-appreciating attention of millennials and drew her to the forefront of millennial artists in Korea.
Seul-gi paints characters somewhere between adulthood and childhood, of boys and girls quietly bracing in growing pains, learning how to fit into their own individual adulthood.
Her recent works have taken on blue over the canvas. Blue is a color of rough encounters, bruises, and melancholy, but the canvas also embraces a warm illuminating gleam. Distinctly delicate but textured brushstrokes mark the canvas, oddly familiar like a fairy tale told over a dimly lit kitchen counter.
Seul-gi presents 48 new works this exhibition. A portmanteau of blue and luminous, the artist imagined the blues of growth pains with an inner glow. Inspired by a verse in The Book of Questions, a collection of brief poems by Chilean Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda, Seul-gi’s brushwork has been profuse as of late. Like the message she hopes to reach all who are growing in pain, she no longer avoids the ache but accepts it in tranquility, to be made whole through her own practice.
Playing house, paper boat, melodeon (reed organ), dandelion, lotus leaves in her paintings are each recollected from Seul-gi’s childhood memories, some from childhood play. A paper boat cast to the night sea, a lotus leaf deflecting streaks of rain - these scenes resonate with a distinct sensibility stemming from the artist’s inner depths. To the grown child left in the dark room, Seul-gi gave a small star.
