Movement 2227, 53×45.5cm, Acrylic on canvas, 2022

Modern people find themselves at the center of an ever changing world. We are exposed to an era of chaos that rapidly introduces new paradigms on to our relationships with others and with society. Subsequently, we face daily life in dizziness and shortness of breath, in which we must squeeze to fit into these new paradigms. My hope is that our increasingly desolate humanity returns to a purer, natural state of humanhood. This hope started from a small wish to discover my true self while one with nature.

I have tried countlessly to have a dialogue with nature through my artistic career. The results of which have manifested at times ats three dimensional objects and other times as various shapes. My serial works are titled as “Dream and Daily Life,” “Vestiges,” “Circulation,” and my most recent attempt at a dialogue with nature – “Movement.”

Due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, I found myself more often alone, and more immersed in nature. I obtained a positive and hopeful energy from deeply observing the seasonal changes of nature, and I tried to express that feeling on a canvas in dual structure.

“Gesture” is an important visual element in my work. Various movements leave different traces and in the process of encompassing these traces gives birth to an entirely new image. The serial work titled, “Movement,” seeks the harmony between Yin and Yang, the internal and external, and through the picture plane. “Movement,” extracted from nature is an embodiment of my hope that all the world’s events will move towards a more nourishing and positive direction.

January 2022

Kang, Tai Woong

Movement 2223, 72.7×60.6cm, Acrylic on canvas, 2022

TaiWoong Kang was born in Seoul, South Korea. He received both his B.F.A. and M.F.A. from Chung-Ang University in 1986 and 1990. He immigrated to the United States in 1998. He received his M.A. from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania in 2001 and worked as an artist based in New York. He had a total of 49 solo exhibitions since 1990, and total of approximately 500 group exhibitions since 1986. He has moved back to South Korea since 2012 and is currently a professor at Chung-Ang University College of Arts.