Myung-Sik Kim’s recent work has explored the pathos of living in a here and now that has overwhelmed and undermined a cherished past.

This temporal tension is magnified by the changes brought about by modernization and urbanization: the rural village of Mr. Kim’s(서양화가 김명식,김명식 작가,김명식 교수) youth is unrecognizable today, its very existence as a separate village obliterated by the encroachment of the city which swallowed it whole.

Of course, Mr. Kim recognizes that modernization does offer genuine comforts and conveniences. Yet, his art proposes that in the end it also diminishes our purity as human beings, by offering us a Faustian bargain that disconnect us from our own pasts.

Mr. Kim’s(キムミョンシク,Andy Kim,KIM MYUNG SIK,金明植,김명식 화백)visits back to the area where he was born cannot constitute a “return home” because there is no home for him to return to–a city block at the same latitude and longitude is no replacement for the fields of his memories where he once caught grasshoppers and dragonflies with the friends of his youth.

△2007년 6월 뉴욕 ‘Project Space 35 Gallery’에서 가진 개인전 리뷰.