Crossing Gazes（SINGAPORE）

Mizuma Gallery is proud to present Crossing Gazes, a solo exhibition by South Korean artist Hyung Koo Kang. This will be the gallery’s inaugural show at Singaporean’s highly anticipated arts cluster at Gillman Barracks. The exhibition will feature new works from Kang’s enigmatic large-scale portraits from 14 September to 18 November 2012. Kang has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions from Korea to the United States. More notably, Kang had a career defining exhibition at the Singapore Art Museum in 2011 to much critical acclaim.

Crossing Gazes marks the arrival of Mizuma Gallery into Singapore and the region. Though the gallery primarily deals with contemporary Japanese artists, the gallery also promotes several emerging Western and Asian artists. Singapore audiences can expect a variety of emerging and established Asian and Japanese artists who are regarded as unorthodox with their quirky sensibilities. Crossing Gazes is an example of the many quality shows Mizuma Gallery will bring to Singaporean audiences to encourage the cross-cultural exchange of ideas between people from different backgrounds and countries.

Kang is fast establishing himself as one of Korea’s most renowned artists for his intense portraits of various celebrities, artists, political figures, anonymous figures and even himself. Several of his more notable works include an aged Marilyn Monroe and Andy Warhol, a smoking Vincent Van Gogh, and Mao Zedong. His portraits are renown for capturing the phenomenon of the fixing of the gaze in any meeting of two people. It is often said that the eyes are capable of revealing one’s feelings and thoughts. Kang covets for his large-scale portraits to engulf his audience and extract mutual dialogues with the viewer and also himself through his subject’s profound gaze.

“When I paint, I focus on the eyes. This is so that people can see the gaze from the paintings. I started by painting the subject on the canvas, but by the time I finish I feel like my paintings are staring at me”, Kang describes.