KIM Chan-Il

Korean　1961

Kim Chan-il's work is not just a formal experiment within painting, but also a work of art that establishes relations with an external subject called the spectators. The premise of painting, of which "painting" is an activity to create an image that induces a three-dimensional illusion on a rectangular two-dimensional surface, was broken by various contemporary artists in the 1960s. While the American artist Frank Stella shaped canvases to open the frame of painting to all shapes other than rectangle, Lucio Fontana’s knife cut the frontal space of two-dimensional paintings, extending it to a third dimension that connected the front and back of the canvas. Kim’s art are extensions of the revolutionary concept. His artwork are products of a creative process in which he throws questions and answers at the large framework of "painting" itself, by transforming the physical conditions of painting, the rectangular canvas and smooth surface, in various ways.