Chun Kwang Young produces sculptural compositions made from small, hand-cut bits of Styrofoam wrapped in antique mulberry paper sourced from Korean periodicals and academic texts that have been tinted with teas, fruits and flowers. Often massive in scale, Chun’s highly tactile sculptures and three-dimensional canvases are embedded with Korean tradition and history while articulated in a contemporary visual language.

 

Although he began his career as a painter, Chun started to experiment with paper sculpture in the mid-1990s and over time his work has evolved in complexity and scale. The development of his signature technique was sparked by a childhood memory of seeing medicinal herbs wrapped in mulberry paper tied into small packages. Chun’s work subtly merges the techniques, materials, and traditional sentiment of his Korean heritage with the conceptual freedom he experienced during his Western education.

 

Chun Kwang Young received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hongik University, Seoul and a Master of Fine Arts from the Philadelphia College of Art, Pennsylvania. His work is in numerous public collections, including The Rockefeller Foundation and the United Nations, New York; the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.; the Philadelphia Society Building, Pennsylvania; the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, and the Seoul Museum of Art; the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the National Museum of Fine Arts, Malta.

 

He was named Artist of the Year by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, in 2001 and in 2009 he was awarded the Presidential Prize in the 41st Korean Culture and Art Prize by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

 

Born 1944 in Hongchun, Korea | Lives in works in Seongnam, Korea