Nam Tchun-Mo

b. 1961, South Korea

The colourful and almost hypnotic intensity of the effects of Nam Tchun-Mo’s curves and lines attracts the eye and invites us to contemplate to the gentle rhythm of breathing. The artist is a member of the Dansaekhwa movement – Korean monochrome painting – which combines the aesthetic of the Western avant-garde movements in the 1960s and 1970s and integrates elements specific to Korean culture, such as the involvement of the body and mind or the process of repetition and meditation. As a result, we can see a single state of mind in each of his paintings, as well as a communion in the abstraction and apparent simplicity of the work.

Nam Tchun-Mo is an aesthetic creation that responds to a dual impulse: emotional and conceptual. The meaning is hidden between the lines. Everything is lines and dashes, but the artist adopts an original approach and his work cannot be compared to anything else. This physical and chromatic simplicity is a poem written on canvas, which has empty and full spaces, light and shadow, hollows and reliefs. We are moved by these profound palettes. Vibration and emotional complexity can go hand in hand with the world of clarity in the imperfect geometry of these irregular, quivering lines, which are incised into the very material that protrudes from the canvas and seem to slowly take shape. Flatness and relief come together to create soft, subtle atmospheres from line to line, from thought to the painting. This is beyond painting. Colour is exalted by reliefs, which highlight the spaces that are created in this way.

I always want to portray a subtle aroma that I can smell in my mind through my pieces. By visualising this aroma, I was able to find the word “haze”, which is soft and delicate. Although this aroma is amorphous, it’s so clear to me that I can not only describe it with materials, but also transparent colours, the artist explains. In this way, we are able to understand the depth of thought, which conceives these textured paintings as receptacles of a mental space that has been experienced time and time again. The intangible becomes tangible and presents itself to the wandering eye through the bravura of the main elements in this concentrated depiction of intuition and matter.

The colourful and almost hypnotic intensity of the effects of Nam Tchun-Mo’s curves and lines attracts the eye and invites us to contemplate to the gentle rhythm of breathing. The artist is a member of the Dansaekhwa movement – Korean monochrome painting – which combines the aesthetic of the Western avant-garde movements in the 1960s and 1970s and integrates elements specific to Korean culture, such as the involvement of the body and mind or the process of repetition and meditation. As a result, we can see a single state of mind in each of his paintings, as well as a communion in the abstraction and apparent simplicity of the work.

Nam Tchun-Mo is an aesthetic creation that responds to a dual impulse: emotional and conceptual. The meaning is hidden between the lines. Everything is lines and dashes, but the artist adopts an original approach and his work cannot be compared to anything else. This physical and chromatic simplicity is a poem written on canvas, which has empty and full spaces, light and shadow, hollows and reliefs. We are moved by these profound palettes. Vibration and emotional complexity can go hand in hand with the world of clarity in the imperfect geometry of these irregular, quivering lines, which are incised into the very material that protrudes from the canvas and seem to slowly take shape. Flatness and relief come together to create soft, subtle atmospheres from line to line, from thought to the painting. This is beyond painting. Colour is exalted by reliefs, which highlight the spaces that are created in this way.

I always want to portray a subtle aroma that I can smell in my mind through my pieces. By visualising this aroma, I was able to find the word “haze”, which is soft and delicate. Although this aroma is amorphous, it’s so clear to me that I can not only describe it with materials, but also transparent colours, the artist explains. In this way, we are able to understand the depth of thought, which conceives these textured paintings as receptacles of a mental space that has been experienced time and time again. The intangible becomes tangible and presents itself to the wandering eye through the bravura of the main elements in this concentrated depiction of intuition and matter.

Nam Tchun-Mo is an aesthetic creation that responds to a dual impulse: emotional and conceptual. The meaning is hidden between the lines. Everything is lines and dashes, but the artist adopts an original approach and his work cannot be compared to anything else. This physical and chromatic simplicity is a poem written on canvas, which has empty and full spaces, light and shadow, hollows and reliefs. We are moved by these profound palettes. Vibration and emotional complexity can go hand in hand with the world of clarity in the imperfect geometry of these irregular, quivering lines, which are incised into the very material that protrudes from the canvas and seem to slowly take shape. Flatness and relief come together to create soft, subtle atmospheres from line to line, from thought to the painting. This is beyond painting. Colour is exalted by reliefs, which highlight the spaces that are created in this way.

I always want to portray a subtle aroma that I can smell in my mind through my pieces. By visualising this aroma, I was able to find the word “haze”, which is soft and delicate. Although this aroma is amorphous, it’s so clear to me that I can not only describe it with materials, but also transparent colours, the artist explains. In this way, we are able to understand the depth of thought, which conceives these textured paintings as receptacles of a mental space that has been experienced time and time again. The intangible becomes tangible and presents itself to the wandering eye through the bravura of the main elements in this concentrated depiction of intuition and matter.

— Selected works