KANG HYUNG KOO

Kang's technical virtuosity in assimilating emotional, political, social and cultural themes in singular visual motif of portraiture is further intensified by a balance between pragmatic adjustment of photographic composition and expressionistic painting technique and medium, allowing space for his celebrities from the past to revive their spirits. The magnitude of the painting is a form of exaggeration to Kang, hence caricature in itself, which effectively is defined as 'loaded portrait', an element that Kang pertains to with his meticulously detailed skin, moreover, overtly truthful and scientifically inspected depiction of his protagonists. However, in Kang's paintings, Audrey Hepburn is captured in a transcendental and timeless moment, further embellishing her celebrated status with the glitz and glamour of the reflective surface of its silver aluminum. As if captured in mid-movie, mixture of tenderness and deliberation is expressed through her face with her enigmatic demeanor further romanticized in monotone of a black and white movie as he also exploits the reflective plane to emit a sensation of successions of movements according to the viewer's stance and lighting allowing Hepurn to interact, and communicate with the audience as an actress. The monumentality of the composition and the atmospheric illusion of its medium accentuate her mesmerizing character, staging her in an unworldly atmosphere; at first, the utterly accurate portraiture may appear visually imposing, but with second glance, the viewers realize his paintings are much more intricate and multifaceted as the striking features are a mere facade and the overall ethereal aura of the protagonist is what enchant us in experiencing various spectrums of emotion, a comparable peculiar magnetism to Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa.