Hwang Do You: The Thirty-three Flower Blossoms

Kimreeaa Gallery will present Hwang Do You’s solo exhibition, The Thirty-Three Flower Blossoms, from March 14 to April 12, 2025. This exhibition showcases a series of works that eliminate emotion and memory, focusing instead on pure painterly exploration. Created based on the artist’s self-imposed constraints and rules, the marks and colors left on the canvas generate a unique yet beautiful atmosphere within a structured logic, offering viewers a distinct visual experience.

Hwang Do You does not perceive painting merely as a means of conveying meaning but rather as an artistic inquiry centered on visual experience. Through the concept of Ilhoegnon (一劃論, "The Theory of a Single Stroke"), he seeks to reveal every stage of the process, from the initial mark to the final trace. His canvases, composed of single-layered strokes without overlapping paint, eliminate emotion and narrative, emphasizing pure formal order. This approach allows viewers to engage in a sensory experience, finding their own interpretations within the enigmatic space created by color and line. 

The Thirty-Three Flower Blossoms series continues Hwang’s exploration of Alice in Wonderland, but this time, Alice disappears, and only fragments of the landscape remain. As a result, the paintings shift toward pure abstraction, consisting solely of color and form. Compared to his previous works, this series adopts a more distilled aesthetic, constructing dreamlike landscapes within a rational framework. Among the 34 new pieces, several are painted swiftly on thin cotton fabric and will be revealed for the first time in this exhibition. These works further highlight the artist’s philosophy of painting—one that values discipline and the tactile nature of the hand.

The artist’s distinctive lines, imbued with condensed energy akin to brushstrokes in traditional Oriental painting, along with his unique sense of color, emphasize depth by revealing process rather than presenting a completed form—much like the understated beauty of Korean white porcelain. At first glance, his paintings may appear as a collection of unfinished traces, but a closer look reveals a meticulous inquiry and structured logic embedded within the composition. In these narrative-free canvases, viewers are invited to discover their own meanings and immerse themselves in the dreamlike, pure beauty of Hwang Do You’s unique landscapes, which encapsulate nature without directly imitating it.