A time to appreciate the stars missed in busy daily life and the night paths, Kim Seon-du solo exhibition 《About Stars — Between Day and Night》

Korean painter Kim Seon-du is holding a solo exhibition 《About Stars — Between Day and Night》 at the Hwang Chang-bae Art Museum in Yeonhui-dong, Seoul, from October 19 to November 28. Approximately 20 new works from 2026 from his two representative series, 〈Day Star〉, which depicts stars invisible due to the light during the day, and 〈Night Path〉, which depicts walking a field path under a full moon, will be displayed.

Born in Jangheung in 1958, Kim Seon-du entered the art world after winning the Grand Prize at the JoongAng Fine Arts Competition in 1984, and he nurtured future generations as a professor of Korean painting at Chung-Ang University for 30 years. He served as the stand-in for Jang Seung-eop's paintings in the movie ‘Chihwaseon’ and painted the cover for Kim Hoon's novel 『Namhansanseong Fortress』. This year, he has met audiences in Daegu, Mexico City, Geoje, and others, starting with a retrospective at the Jeonnam Museum of Art.

The connection between the artist and the museum goes back 30 years. When he went on an expedition from Mongolia to Russia for the ‘5th Silk Road Exhibition’ in 1996, the late painter Hwang Chang-bae accompanied him on that journey.

〈Night Path〉 comes from the memory of a pitch-black country road in his hometown, Jangheung, which he used to walk 4km along after finishing school. Stars poured over that path, and the artist says that perhaps we are all walking a night path where we cannot see even an inch ahead. His full moon does not brightly illuminate the path ahead. It merely quietly illuminates the many footprints that have passed this way before.

The new work 〈Night Path〉 captures a white full moon in a sky dense with stars and mountain foothills dyed in moonlight, while 〈Night Path-Yeongchuksan〉 captures a person walking alone along a rocky ridge under a yellow moon. Instead of painting colors by layering powder on thick mulberry paper, he infuses the color by letting it soak in 30 to 50 times, and irreversible ink lines meet layered colors on a single screen.

The artist says, “Art is not about inventing a new path, but the power that allows us to walk an old path again.” In the museum of the painter who walked the path together 30 years ago, Kim Seon-du is expected to float stars over that old path once more.

Read the original (Korean)