Kang Car
Artist MINSEOK KANG
Born in South Korea in 1980, I have been passionate about expressing myself through car paintings since childhood. I viewed racing cars as the greatest human artwork, and pursued fine arts at Dong-A University, earning a Bachelor's degree in 2007 and a Master's degree in 2010. Over time, my artwork shifted from emphasizing external car beauty to portraying my unique style, incorporating elements of time, space, relationships, and culture.
Currently, I depict distorted car shapes symbolizing the modern generation's pursuit of happiness and self-made paths amid fierce competition. Using acrylics, I employ a technique of scraping paint with a squeegee, and incorporate embroidery for artificial straight lines, speed, and temporal shapes.
Since 2023, I have delved into media art and 3D works via NFT art. In the 'Shape of Sweet Memories' project, I collect leftover paint fragments to create ice cream filmed in a video, then produce it as NFT art. Additionally, I engage in sculpture work.
Art Work Portfolio
I express an intense power, unresolved in inner conflicts and worries over the future. When doing this, I use paint with various techniques over the subject of a speeding motorcar. This motorcar embodies time, speed, and dream in a self-inflicted competition. The form of the motorcar adopted in this work is distorted by an intense speed. This manifests my identity and shadow - the latter represented as a beast full of inner desires and anger. In my new works, figures of both sides resemble each other as in a “decalcomania”. But these aren't a space of time loop. They tell a butterfly-effect story that reflects an afterimage of the distant future or a picture of the bygone days in the mirror.
The story of the time leap is somewhat similar to a future challenge. A motorcar racing at near-light speed manifests my longing to take my hope into the near future. A three-dimensional presentation with primary colors and embroidery thread is the signature of this work.
Even at this moment, I am going through changes. That is what my work displays and I wish to resemble my art. My rival is no one else but myself. I evolve by absorbing much from external changes and challenges. I am stuck in interminable time and space. The Big Bang scatters all the anxiety and conflicts, and in the space of this very moment, I unfold the story with the existence of the beast hidden inside me.
Wind dismantles the space with threads and straight lines, and sharp light brushes past to leave the trace of time. Numerous energies lose their direction, and through the gap squashed by the invisible force, the beast breaks through the fear. The turbulent heart of the beast struggles with reality, and the instinct for speed is reawakened. Widely spread wings of a butterfly flutter to untie the rein of the tangled chain, and the invisible force explodes again.
The beast's strength was harnessed as the continually pulsating heartbeat sound and unstable energy intertwined, taming the beast through numerous concentrated lines. At the moment when the strength-sprinkled paint erupted on the canvas, my short breath resonated from my fingertips. My racing heart exploded on the canvas, and a beast awakened from the instinct of speed.
Running for the dream. Within a labyrinthine forest sacred columns could be seen and such divine structures seemed as if deities were protecting their trees. However, as the sky was stained in green the ends of the forest could not be seen. An unawakened dream had no stoplights, and so the racer aptly races along the trail, holding out the hope for a new pathway.
But a path somebody has passed is a meaningless repeated challenge. Insensible goal makes me lose the object of competition and groundless competition makes me lose the future destination and wander. I arouse myself to find the direction for destination. Although the direction indicates the lonely fight with myself, I choose the lonely navigation looking for a new direction. I navigate to 7 unknown worlds which may exist somewhere without compass. I make challenge toward my own destination looking for the direction by my own sense. The effort of constant ego-finding changes my environment and develops me. That change excites me and makes me an enterprising traveler exploring the unknown world.
The dream was different from reality and there was a target consciousness toward each dream and intense competition.Our figure changing at a fast speed in the urban society was expressed by the change and various techniques in the challenge toward future looking for the reality and dream he was experiencing by use of urban images.
Working period: 9 weeks
Working area : H 40208 x W 7705 + W 7166
Flat room work: 355 x 125 cm
Material: acrylic on canvas
This project was completed over about 3 months with the realization of creating opportunities for cultural experience for the public.
With this project, the Changwon Parking Tower was reborn as a landmark of Changwon, not an ordinary one.