Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter – The event is more fundamental to how we mark the passage of time. This cycle is a perennial theme of casual dialogue and artistic creation, taking center stage in the exhibition “Kim Jong Il: The Painter of Seoraksan” at the Atlanta High School Art Museum. On the surface it looks like a simple journey for the entire calendar, but there is more to the following – a fusion of Korean Dansaekhwa paintings and American abstract expressionism. By using familiar narratives when filtering with a mixed style rooted in life experiences, HAK shows that you don’t mean as you say.
Hak was born in Korea, where he grew up and began his artistic career. Age in the 1960s meant a stumbling in the post-war landscape with identity and nation, which constituted the movement known as Dansaekhwa. This abstract, non-objective approach, though not entirely representing Hack’s influence, dominated Korean painting at the time and provided a key context for his development.
Often translated as “monochrome painting” and is defined by interactions with matter, deceptive simplicity and destructive contrast. Its influence appears most clearly in HAK’s winter works. Untitled (winter) (2017) depicts a forest deprived of leaves and the ground is covered with snow. Only the exposed trunks and branches remain, except for the two birds on the branches in the foreground. At first glance, the canvas seems almost entirely white, but a closer inspection reveals a series of greys from ash to slate to slate. Thick painted boards have been built and carved with brushes, making the site densely important. Take a step back again and the landscape no longer appears invalid, but is alive. At first, a quiet winter scene seems to be a meditation on Dansaekhwa’s influence on Hak style.
In 1977, Hak moved to New York, where he met neo-expressionists such as Julian Schnabel and Anselm Kiefer, as well as the legacy of abstract expressionism. Characterized by intuitive marking and non-objective components, covering the edge-to-edge characteristics of canvas (so known as “full painting”), a movement embodied by figures such as Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline. The influence is most obvious in HAK’s summer painting. Green shades and fragrant plants (1998) A flower bed – nose, peony, lily – all burst up from the emerald’s ground to fill the surface without pausing. While it is certainly a summer scene with its lush green and saturated tones, the lack of horizon or painting depth flattens the canvas into a single encircling aircraft. and Untitled (winter)the real subject is not the image itself, but the painting exercises of HAK.
What is most striking is how close these works are. Dansaekhwa’s collision with the rigor of abstract expressionism may have created a chaotic, unruly canvas. Instead, HAK distilled these competitiveness into a simple framework of seasons. Although style influences are different, they are never overwhelmed. Balance and clarity prevail. The exhibition offers a dual entrance: first, seasonal variation in comfort familiarity, followed by conceptual interactions of styles. One might think of it as a lyrical walk of the year, but these works resist classification. They are not traditional landscapes, but something more attractive.
“Kim Chong Hak: Seoraksan’s painterUntil November 2, 2025, located in the Museum of Advanced Art.
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