Kwon Kyoungsook, an artist who has built a distinctive formative language in Korean contemporary abstract art, is having an active summer in 2026, moving between Venice, Italy and major domestic art stages. Having been invited to a collateral exhibition held during the Venice Biennale, she has also won an award at the 30th Na Hye-seok Art Exhibition, Korea’s most prestigious women’s art competition, drawing attention from the art world at home and abroad.
 [코리안투데이] Artist Kwon Kyoungsook |
Working across the boundary between Eastern and Western painting, Kwon has unfolded traces of time, nature, and life through her own pictorial language, presenting new possibilities for Korean contemporary abstract art.
The special exhibition running from July 15 to 22 at Art Depot Ai Biri Gallery in Venice, Italy, is themed ‘Traces of Water.’ In this exhibition, Kwon presents works that render the vitality of nature and the flow of time through delicate color and deep texture, engaging in dialogue with European audiences.
Her signature series ‘Rhythm of the Garden’ in particular captures the rhythm of nature, the cycle of life, and a message of healing through vivid yet restrained color and a three-dimensional composition. The texture and lines that accumulate repeatedly across the canvas connect human memory and emotion with the breath of nature into a single formative language, symbolically revealing Kwon Kyoungsook’s own artistic world.
Alongside the Venice exhibition, Kwon also received an award in the Western painting category at the 30th Na Hye-seok Art Exhibition. Hosted by the Suwon chapter of the Korean Fine Arts Association, the Na Hye-seok Art Exhibition is Korea’s leading women’s art competition, regarded as a prestigious event that carries on the artistic spirit of Na Hye-seok, a pioneer of modern Korean women’s art.
The award-winning work, ‘Creating the Texture of Life,’ uses gelstone on canvas to render a rough texture reminiscent of fossils or plant colonies accumulated over long ages. The yellow thread running across the canvas symbolizes the flow and energy of life, while repeated action and the accumulation of materials expand traces of memory and emotion into a new sense of space. It has been highly praised for embodying both the depth of time and the cycle of life within a flat painting.
 [코리안투데이] Award-winning work ‘Creating the Texture of Life’ |
Kwon’s work can also be seen in Insa-dong, Seoul. Her representative piece ‘Traces of Time’ (91.1×91.1cm, Mixed Media on Canvas, 2026) is currently on view at the 8th Korea Docent Association Members’ Exhibition (July 15–20) at La Mer Gallery.
 [코리안투데이] Representative piece ‘Traces of Time’ |
According to her artist’s statement, the work visually renders and makes tactile the invisible flow of time. It reinterprets the free abstraction of 1950s European Informel and the spirituality of Korean Dansaekhwa in a contemporary way, while departing from the restrained color of conventional Dansaekhwa to build bright, elegant pastel-toned layers of color. The repeated act of layering, scraping, and re-layering pigment reveals both performativity and materiality at once, offering viewers a sense of visual liberation and a space for contemplation.
Kwon has steadily explored inner calm and the aesthetics of restraint through her 2023 solo exhibition at Gyeongin Museum of Fine Art in Insa-dong and her 2025 solo exhibition ‘Susinje’ at Kaywon University of Art & Design. She has also contributed to expanding the international presence of Korean contemporary art through participation in major domestic and international art fairs, including the 2024 SETEC Bank Art Fair and the 2026 Yokohama International Art Festival in Japan.
Kwon Kyoungsook is currently active in numerous art organizations, including the Korean Fine Arts Association, continuing exhibitions and cultural exchange both at home and abroad. The delicate lines and deep textures flowing freely across her canvases offer contemporary viewers a space for healing and rest, inviting new reflection on the relationship between nature, humanity, and time.
Kwon Kyoungsook’s artistic journey — from Venice to Suwon and on to Insa-dong, Seoul — is regarded as an important example of Korean contemporary abstract art actively engaging with the global art market. As she harmoniously fuses Eastern thought with contemporary abstract art, the art world is watching closely to see what new possibilities her work will reveal on the international stage.
[ 김현수 기자 ] incheoneast@thekoreantoday.com
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