Kate Oh is one of the bastion artists working in modernizing and promoting traditional Korean culture in New York City. Oh pursues this with her art practice, academic pursuits and her work as a gallerist, operating Kate Oh Gallery, where she frequently curates exhibitions mounting works by contemporary and historical Korean artists. This endeavor, of dovetailing Modernist approaches to the picture plane and traditional Korean folk art, is adeptly evidenced in her new painting, A city recharging.

The work is, viewed from afar, minimalistic and serene. The fluttering, buttery background makes use of swathes of hay-cream oil, unevenly distributed in strokes that render a slight sense of airy depth. The weighty anchor to the canvas is the central element—the coalesced vertical towering blocks. At the bottom edge of the silhouette is a second skyline, painted in gray shrouded strokes, a horizontal expanse of New York City. In a similarly delicate mode of off-black charcoal, peaks are painted into the top portion of the coalesced tower silhouette. This gives the impression of a natural landscape perched within an urban block.

To the structure’s upper right, a flaxen orb-like sun hangs. To the middle-left, a vermillion-orange sun, a bit smaller, buoys. Lastly, in the lower right is a dark, midnight blue circle—presumably the titular moon. Oh’s Stygian skyscraper latticework, which metes out the three celestial spheres, is masterfully rendered. On the one hand, she has achieved dimensionality with black-on-black, the peak and middle elements of this architectural foray bulging as angles, casting shadows and perspectivally rendered, therein showing dexterity in the figure/line relationship. On the other, however, the bottom facets of the skyscraper set is pooled into an even black silhouette, evincing Oh’s erudite command of minimalism. She does not forego simplicity where it is required.

Purposing the moon and sun motifs while inventively distributing the five elements’ colors by way of a minimalist field, Oh’s work not only culls traditional Korean motifs but also traditional formal principles, such as Dancheong’s flatness. Oh’s work is also meta-referential, in a way, as her modernization is also made iconographic, indexed by the subject matter she has pictured: a set of New York skyscraper buildings. This is, to be sure, marked by her own familiarity with the city where Kate Oh resides and operates her gallery while practicing, Korean traditional art, which remains as much a geography-specific art, continuing as a skill requiring apprentice-pupil mentorship and serious, studied, laborious erudition. Oh is one of the select Modernists who possesses such know-how, as demonstrated by this new work, and has brought it to New York.

(Text by Ekin Erkan)