경남 창원 출생 

1971-1984 서울대학교 서양학과 학사, 대학원 회화과 석사 졸업 
그 후 프랑스로 유학 
프랑스 소나무작가회 회원 
제4회 이중섭 미술상, 17회 KBS 예술상 (문화와 예술 분야)등 주요 수상경력다수 

한국 프랑스, 독일등 유럽과 미국 등에서 50회 이상의 개인전과 100회 이상단체전, 그리고 미국 유럽 등 국제 아트페어에 참여 

한국과 프랑스를 기점으로 세계적인 작가로 활발하게 활동 중

2012 가나아트센터, 서울

2010 가나아트뉴욕, 미국 뉴욕
2007 가나아트부산, 부산         
2004 가나아트센터, 서울
2003 트루아 현대미술관, 프랑스 트루아
2001 갤러리가나 보부르, 프랑스 파리
2000 갤러리가나 보부르, 프랑스 파리
       인사아트센터 가나아트갤러리, 서울
1998 가나화랑, 서울
1997 갤러리가나 보부르, 프랑스 파리
1996 가나화랑, 서울
1993 제4회 이중섭미술상 수상기념전-서울
1992 프랑크 하넬 화랑, 프랑크푸르트
1991 가나화랑, 서울
       타도라브와르 화랑, 파리
1990 "FORUM", 뒤셀도르프
1988 스톡홀름 미술대전, 스톡홀름
       가나화랑, 서울
1986 서울미술대전, 서울
1981 서울미술관, 서울

2012 1980 년대 인간전 그 이후, 오늘의 동향전 정문규미술관 안산
2010 황색선을 넘어 경향갤러리
2010 소나무 작가전 한국문화원 바르샤바 폴란드
2009 성령의 불꽃전 루멘갤러리 프랑스 파리
2009 이중섭 미술상 수상작가전 조선일보미술관
2008 가나아트 개관 25 주년 기념전 가나아트센터                                 
2007 권순철·배병우전 갤러리가나보부르 프랑스 파리
2006 권순철·곽수영전 2X13 갤러리 미국 뉴욕
2006 경계선: 소나무협회전 몽파르나스미술관 프랑스 파리
2005 자연의 기록전 서울시립미술관
2004 평화선언 세계 100 인미술관 국립현대미술관 과천
       경남도립미술관 개관전 경남도립미술관 창원
       현대미술의 시선전 세종문화회관
2003 얼굴의 표현전 대전시립미술관 대전
2002 한∙중작가 30 인전 예술의 전당
그 외 다수


Kwun Sun-Cheol

1944 Born in Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do, Korea.  Education 1971 BFA in Painting, Seoul National University, Seoul1984 MFA in Painting, Seoul National University, Seoul  Solo Exhibitions
2021 <CHEOL>, Changseong-dong Research Institute, Seoul
2020 <Trace>, Gana Art, Seoul
2019 Galerie Son, Berlin
and more than 30 times
 Selected Group Exhibitions
2023 <Urban Reality>, Seoul Metropolitan Government, Seoul.
2023 <Colorful Korean Painting – From Harmony to Purification>, Art space 3, Seoul.
2023 <Colorful Korean Painting>, Art Space 3, Seoul.
2023 <Inhale, Exhale>, Ki Hwarang, Paju.
2022-2023 <Georges Douot and Korean Art: Perspective Resonance>, Jeonnam Museum of Art, Jeonnam.
2022 <Kwon Soon-cheol – Lee Kang-so: My heart is pounding>, Changseong-dong Laboratory, Seoul.
2021 <New Naturalism: When Rhizome Meets Hwaeom>, Jeonbuk Museum of Art, Jeonju.
and more than 70 times
 
Award 
1992 4th Lee Jong-seop Art Award
2013 17th Overseas Compatriots Award in Culture and Arts Category
 
Author's Note:
I stay here aimlessly
with my soul and my work, working to call,
seek, see, and feel the souls of all the things
that fill the world.
<Space> 85 years.

Works description:
Soul, 1996-1998, oil on canvas, 200x254cm


Introduction

The face and human body are at the heart of the painting of Korean KWUN Sun-Cheol, a long-standing Parisian adoptionist. Nevertheless, his favorite themes, where nature sometimes signals his telluric presence, are not objects of delectation, but the bruises of a sore past, forever swift in his rear-consciousness. "The past never dies," Faulkner said, "and for some it didn't even pass." It will have been realized that KWUN's painting could only be a fighting art, where the condition of man's suffering, continuously apostrophic, refers to the tearing of a memory lacerated by the trauma of a fratricidal conflict, along with the breakdown of the family unit. In this context, representation is always simultaneously a projection.


Critic

Kwun Sun-Cheol, one of the most renowned Korean contemporary artists, was born in 1944 in Chan-Won, South Korea. In 1989 he moved to Paris, where  he  is  now  living and working. Specially famous are his big-sized depictions of human faces. His paintings move in a line between figuration and abstraction and his oeuvre  encompasses landscapes, portraits – amongst them some selfportraits – as well as surreal depictions he calls „souls“.
Kwun’s landscapes are void of people as well as of vegetation, which – when it appears  – is shown in the distance, black and winterly. He paints landscapes in a spectrum reaching from smooth, dispersed brushstrokes to concentrated clusters of  paint. While the former convey the hazyness, coolness and atmospheric side of landscape, the latter are used for an exploration of surfaces of stony mountains and of rough earth. The themes of stone, earth and sea have something primordial and eternal about them. Some of his townscapes take up the chromaticity and mood of Camille Pissarro’s paintings of Paris.
Also in his portraits there is a tension between smooth and rough brushstrokes, between surface and depth. Some portraits almost resemble sculptures by superposing so many layers. But the energy and tension of the brushstrokes disperse to show faces which are in the end only a shine and an outward shell. The brushstrokes don’t form a firm body, they dissolve as if they were just a description of the ephemeral eye’s movement; the crisscrossing and concentration of their lines form a topographic relief. Kwun doens’t give the expression of the portrayed away, he lets them avert their gaze and look inwards. He depicts the young with their smooth skin, but much more often the old and wrinkled, marked by life and time. The individuality of his faces seems a hazard, which the painter wants to get on the track of by making physiognomical studies, but in the end depicting human condition itself. Finally his paintings are not portraits in the conventional manner.
His sources for the portraits are taken from sketches done on the streets, or come from  paintings and photos in magazines. Kwun is a passionate draughtsman, and specially in this area he has a freedom of expression which lets his portrayed resemble to mere phantasies. Daphné Le Sergent sees them as reaching back into time, as a far-off memory. A typical melancholical feeling impregnates in her opinion his work, still resulting from the effects of the Korean War (1950-53).
Kwun’s colours by their superlayering and mixing form a palette of greys, but yellow, blue and red flare up, colours resembling miniature and glass painting. Kwun’s search of a spirituality in art shows most clearly in his „souls“, paintings showing mystical light apparitions, fallen souls and crucified figures. It is here that he most clearly states the focal point of his art.

by Verena Alves-Richter


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