PK99004

Settling in Paris in 1970 after studying at the Art Students League of New York from 1965 to 1968, Kim Tschang-Yeul developed his signature style and motif: the representation of the water drop. His water drops represent a material manifestation of a monk-like devotion to enlightenment and thus bring the artist into harmony with himself and the world, as in a Buddhist monk's repeated bows and chants in a meditative ritual. The other signature element of Kim's work is Chinese characters, drawn from his practice in Chinese calligraphy since childhood. PK99004 (Lot 490) from 1997 is a representative example that demonstrates Kim's mature technique and style of employing ideograms evolved over decades. Unlike in other traditional Chinese and Korean literati paintings, it is not essential to interpret the meaning of the Chinese writing in Kim's works. While all characters certainly have meaning, Kim employs them as much for symbolic and aesthetic reasons as for their meaning. His signature style from the 1990s is exemplified by the work, which is filled with ideograms of varying densities as if in the process of either fading away or just coming into existence. This ambiguity of ideograms mirrors and maximises the ephemerality of the water drop.