Minho Kwon

I want my work to respond to the world in which I live. I think that as a visual artist and designer, one has a responsibility to react to the outside world through their work. Also, I believe that genuine visual communication ought to be created by one’s unique view that is formed by their life experiences.

The defeated modern history of Korea - 36 years of Japanese occupation, civil war of the North and South, and military dictatorships - were not good soil to grow its own spontaneous modernist culture. A massive economic growth was achieved within just 50 years, but it could not help to fill the empty gap of culture. This gap was hastily filled with imported, cheap goods from developed countries instead of growing naturally from within Korean culture. Visual art and design was only understood through the lens of business as an element of moneymaking.

However, I believe that accepting this messiness is the key to addressing the opportunity of resetting modernism in Korean visual art. Trying to look at the world through this filter has become a main theme that I want to communicate. The living experience in England has taught me clearly what I have become, where I am standing, and what my part in the visual communication of art and design should be as a Korean.