KWON MinHo

Minho Kwon is a storyteller and an image-maker. His densely, multifaceted drawings command our attention. Kwon’s specialness as an artist is the ability is to fuse industrialised South Korea with Korean culture and it’s political economic history through the expressive power of drawing. The result is potent, brooding and dreamlike; dark blueprints for a dystopic past
His colossal drawings at first seem to be incomplete; architectonic lines have been drawn and rendered with an obsessive attentiveness to detail, demonstrating a comprehensive understanding of his materials – layers of pencil, graphite and charcoal. His drawings has transformed the space into a test-bed for Kwon’s vast architectural creations. Views that cannot be found in one drawing can be found in another, there is no one-way to look at the works or a linear path you have to follow around the gallery the visual gaps you find allow you the space to construct your own story.
written by Elizabeth Goode, Director of Foundry Gallery, London
Kwon’s use of superb craftsmanship to create his ‘blueprints’ for imaginary objects was very apt, and commented, ‘The drawings give a history of their making in the working traces, providing a tension between the solid and the speculative. There is a strong conviction with which they depict something that does not exist. They are reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci’s helicopters, designed and drawn hundreds of years before they existed’.
written by judges of V&A Illustration award 2013

 

 

 

KWON MinHo
Born in 1979, Seoul, Korea

EDUCATION
2013 MA, Visual Communication, Royal College of Art
2007 BA, Graphic Design (illustration / av), Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITION
2015 We Also Deserve To Live, Foundry Gallery, London, UK
2014 Minho Kwon Solo Show, Anise Gallery, London, UK

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITION
2014 Illustration Festa 014, Won Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2014 Chanwon Sculture Biennale, Lia Gallery, Masan, Korea
Dog Project , Sejong Center Chamber Hall, Seoul, Korea
Drawing3, Cafe Four M, Seoul, Korea
2014 Busan Art Show, BEXCO, Busan, Korea
Today’s Salon, Common Centre, Seoul, Korea
Designing Sportsman, DDP, Seoul, Korea
2013 Sustain RCA 2013, Upper Gulbenkian Gallery, London, UK
Jerwood Drawing Prize 2013, Jerwood Space, London, UK
V&A Illustration Awards 2013, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK