Minku Kim, Sarang No.14 (Self-Portrait as a Red-Crowned Crane), 2024. Azure Horizons: A Journey Through Blue.
Coinciding with Frieze Seoul 2024, Phillips returns to The Songwon Art Center to present AzureHorizons: A Journey Through Blue. This selling exhibition explores the multifaceted beauty and symbolism of Azure — not only the most richly layered tone of blue but also the highest-valued pigment used in painting throughout art history. It brings together works by a variety of international artists, including George Condo, Nicolas Party, Ugo Rondinone, Salvo, Lee Ufan, FloraYukhnovich, and many more.
Below, we highlight recent works from six global artists whose reputations are on the rise. Their approaches are distinct but find common ground in exploring this multidimensional color.
Azure Horizons: A Journey Through Blue is on view at The Songwon Art Center from 30 August to 8 September.
Devon DeJardin
Devon DeJardin, Eri, 2024. Azure Horizons: A Journey Through Blue.
A self-taught Los Angeles-based multimedia artist from Portland, Oregon, artist Devon DeJardin (b. 1993) began his creative life as a fashion designer before turning to painting at the suggestion of a stranger in his Instagram DMs — what he called “a nudge from an unexpected mentor.” Inspired by the dimensional forms of fashion in addition to the expressive and physical abstractions of artists like Lee Krasner and Louise Nevelson, his approach is also colored by his close study of world religions in college, through which he explores themes that unite spirituality across cultures. He refers to his forms as “guardians” — abstract geometric forms that possess a spiritual and comforting presence. “I’m not saying you need to believe this and that,” the artist told Interview Magazine, “but we should probably look externally to something greater because that’s probably what’s going to bring us the most peace, the most joy, and the most patience and kindness.”
A young artist fast on the rise, DeJardin’s work is in the permanent collection of Space K Museum in Seoul and has been showcased in recent solo exhibitions with albertz benda in New York and Carl Kostyal in Stockholm. His work has been shown globally at art fairs, including Art SG in Singapore and the Outsider Art Fair and Armory Show in New York.
Alessandro Fogo
Alessandro Fogo, The Satyr’s Dream in Blue, 2023. Azure Horizons: A Journey Through Blue.
Born in Italy in 1992, Alessandro Fogo paints magnificent surreal scenes that have captured audiences’ attention throughout Europe, New York, and China. Deeply symbolic and often referential to several myths or stories at once, his paintings have a mystical presence, reminiscent of films by David Lynch or photographs by Gregory Crewdson, where one is never entirely sure what is natural or what is possible. In this work, blue plays a characteristically prominent role for the artist. He has explained that for him, the color “comes from a particular moment of the day that I like for its ambiguity. In general, I am interested in working with the semantics of objects. I am fascinated by how much an object can really tell us about its history and function,” going on to note that, “As human beings, we attach such strong meaning and power to symbols, but if we forget for a moment our cultural background, we see things, objects, as empty, meaningless containers.”
Minku Kim
Minku Kim, S.E.P (Horizon: Clear Sky), 2021–23. Azure Horizons: A Journey Through Blue.
Born in Seoul before emigrating with his family to the United States, Minku Kim received early training at Copper Union before completing his BFA in painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2012 and his MFA in Sculpture at the New York Studio School in 2017. Now based in Brooklyn, the painter relies on his unique sense of line, edge, color, materiality, and space to build a striking and communicative visual language clearly seen in his two works on offer in this exhibition. His use of blue in these works is intentional and related to the Korean traditional color spectrum called Obangsaek. In this system, blue is seen to represent living wood as a metaphor for growth. It’s part of how Kim navigates his Korean and American identities as an artist, remaking that “by incorporating at least three or all of these Obangsaek colors, I find myself reoriented and centered as a Korean/American.”
Choon Mi Kim
Choon Mi Kim, Ivy, 2024. Azure Horizons: A Journey Through Blue.
The painterly, softly colored, linear abstract works of Korean artist Choon Mi Kim are the means through which she navigates and shares her identity as a global citizen with the world. For Kim, her surroundings, personal identity, and daily interactions with others profoundly impact her work. “I aim for my paintings to bring a sense of freshness to people’s moods and evoke joy in their day-to-day lives,” the artist has said. Her use of line blurs the boundaries between the concepts of painting and drawing, and she’s keen to point out that in the Korean language, the same word can mean “to paint” and “to draw.”
Born in Incheon, South Korea, and now based in London, she earned an MFA from Goldsmiths University of London and an MFA in Painting from Korea National University of Arts in Seoul. Her recent exhibitions include solo and group shows throughout London and Europe.
Choon Mi Kim, Mountains, 2024. Azure Horizons: A Journey Through Blue.
Youngho Seock
Youngho Seock, Conversation 202410013, 2024. Azure Horizons: A Journey Through Blue.
Utilizing soil, Korean paper, and acrylic paint, works in Youngho Seock’s Conversation series capture the viewer’s eye with a masterful manipulation of color and light but also engage our memories of tactile sensation through their extraordinary texture. The use of these materials in this way encourages us to consider our own perception within the context of natural phenomena rather than as something private and separated from the natural world. On the use of soil, the artist has explained: “Soil gives birth to all life on this earth. For tens of thousands of years, it was embraced, made to grow, and destroyed […] my work begins with treating the soil that contains all of this with care […] In addition, through this work process, I talk and communicate with the soil.” A young artist on the rise, Seock has presented solo exhibitions in Seoul and New York and participated in group shows throughout Los Angeles, Italy, France, Hong Kong, Singapore, and more.
Youngho Seock, Conversation 231005, 2023. Azure Horizons: A Journey Through Blue.
Jongsuk Yoon
Jongsuk Yoon, Beautiful Land, 2023. Azure Horizons: A Journey Through Blue.
Born in the Onyang-dong neighborhood of Asan in South Korea’s South Chungcheong Province in 1965, Jongsuk Yoon didn’t begin painting until she was 30 years old and settled in Europe. Her abstracted, dreamlike landscapes offer a window into her personal psychological geography, frequently referencing the mountainous region that has divided North and South Korea for more than 70 years — a region not far from where Yoon was born. Her works at once recall European Modernism, American Abstract Expressionism, and traditional Korean landscape painting, which find visual resonance with each other through the threads of the artist’s memories. Her process is as psychological as the result. She’s explained that “the painting process is like a dialogue, a kind of communication between the picture and me. Ideas and thoughts are formulated while working. I work spontaneously and deliberately without a plan. I spend a lot of time looking and thinking until I get an idea of what the picture needs.”
Yoon’s works are increasingly gaining global renown. In 2024, she celebrated her first solo exhibition in the United States at Marian Goodman Gallery in Los Angeles. That same year, she also created a lobby mural for Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien in Vienna. Her work has been shown in countless further solo exhibitions throughout Europe and Korea.
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