Like mysterious puzzles, his assemblies of small triangles covered with traditional hanji paper offer infinite and delicate combinations of shapes and colours. Omnipresent and familiar in Korean culture and everyday life, hanji paper comes from a long artisanal process and is very appreciated for its resistance and longevity. It is used as a material for writing and thought, radiating a particular spirituality. The sheets used have a long lifetime and history. Sometimes they are over 100 years old and have been read, used and handled by many hands. In the era of social networks, in a world where technology is so advanced, Chun Kwang Young’s attachment to paper is seen as a manifesto, as part of his basic roots and personal legacy.

The exhibition Imaginary Territories has a more intimate feel than the large paintings presented in Venice. Our hearts and minds hold so many emotions and thoughts! Chun Kwang Young brings together two levels of inspiration. He combines his artistic position which is deeply anchored in his roots with the power of colour whose vehemence takes us back to his American abstract expressionist period and strengthens the subjective and emotional intensity of his work. He has pursued a career that has been focused from start to finish for forty years on these two enigmas that are the polar opposites of the universe: the infinitely small and intimate on one hand and the world and collective awareness on the other, two notions that are closely linked and essential to all forms of existence.

Born in South Korea, Chun Kwang Young (b.1944) is an artist who has been working for over 40 years under the theme of the interconnectedness between living beings and the socio-ecological and received his MFA from the Philadelphia College of Art.

Chun was named Artist of the Year by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul and awarded Presidential Prize in the 41st Korean Culture and Art Prize by the Ministry of Culture. Chun has held about 40 solo exhibitions, including the ones in Brooklyn Museum, New York (2018), Museum De Reede, Antwerp (2017), Villa Empain - Boghossian Foundation, Brussels (2017), Knoxville Museum of Art, Tennessee (2011), Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2009), Aldrich Contemporary Museum, Connecticut (2008), The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea (2001), etc. His works are in the collections of the British Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum in London, KUNST Museum Bonn, Yale University Art Gallery, M+ Museum, Hong Kong, National Gallery of Australia, The Leeum Samsung Museum, Seoul, Rockefeller Foundation, New York, among others.