A Solo Exhibition
20 paintings by Gloria Keh
At Fantapia The Kil Hwan Chang Art Museum in South Korea
April & May 2023
My sincere appreciation to director Kil Hwan Chang, curator Tae Sook Myung and Yoo Choong Yeul for this special invitation to exhibit in the very beautiful Fantapia
M The Kil Hwan Chang Art Museum in South Korea.
The solo exhibition Seasons that was originally scheduled for the month of April, has been extended for another month, and ends at the end of May 2023.
Gamsahamnida.
My thanks for this honor and for the tremendous support of my solo exhibition.
Twenty artworks specially painted for Fantapia M The Kil Hwan Chang Art Museum, South Korea.
When the word seasons is mentioned, the mind immediately conjures images of foliage and landscapes of temperate countries that enjoy the four seasons of the year, namely Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.
Yes, indeed, the seasons do often mean just that: being the changing climates of the year. But what about the seasons of the mind, and the seasons of one’s mortal life?
Isn’t Spring synonymous with birth, renewal, growth and promise? When colors are soft and gentle. The age of childhood, youth and young adulthood? And Summer a time of life thats vibrant, charged with energy and passion? Perhaps the age group when one is in one’s 20s to 40’s? A time for the quest of sensory pleasures?
Then we have the Autumn of life, when we begin to let go, a time of maturity, confidence and assurance. And finally, we enter the Winter of our lives - a time of wisdom, quietude, perhaps of prayer, solitude and gratitude.
There are no hard and fast rules to the timing of these stages of life. No particular year when one can say ‘this is the summer of my life’. For in the mind, the seasons do overlap, and often in one’s emotional life, one can even experience the four seasons in just a day, if not in just an hour.
The 20 paintings in this collection presents the four SEASONS in the life of an earthling. Each season comprises of five paintings.
The colors start from the darkness of being in utero, graduating to the lighter, softer colors of spring; entering boldly into the summer of life; and then unveiling the rich warm autumnal hues so synonymous with the season of Fall. Finally, blues and whiter shades of pales for winter, take centrestage, ending with the artist’s favourite color - Black.
Then, the circle is complete: we started in black and end predominently in black. For black is all colors and the color of The Void.
I invite you to take this journey with me - through the seasons of life, expressed in colors, and abstraction.
SprINg
In Utero
Description:
Life begins for the baby in a safe comfort zone - in the darkness of its mother’s womb.
All is silent. Calm. The foetus spends nine months in meditation, wondering what awaits when it leaves this warm place and joins humanity.
Mixed media on canvas
100 cm x 100 cm 2022
Birth
Mixed media on canvas
100 cm x 100 cm 2022
Description:
The baby is born. And is still connected by an invisible umbilical cord to its mother. The breast offers nourishment, nurturing and love. Yellow colors a major part of the canvas. It is the color of The Light. A color associated with happy times, and satisfaction.
Growth
Description:
Just as new seedlings begin to take root and grow in Spring, the baby too begins to grow into childhood. This stage can be experienced in the mind of an adult, when it opens the mind to new ideas, new concepts, new teachings. When we learn, we grow.
Acrylic on canvas
100 cm x 100 cm
2022
Awe
Description:
One of the most beautiful feelings associated with childhood is that sense of awe, that experience of bewilderment. Like the first time, your parents took you to a toy store, or in later years, the first time you saw your own newborn child. Or when you look up at a midnight sky and see stars twinkling in unison. The day we lose our sense of awe is a sorry day indeed.
Acrylic on canvas 100 cm x 100 cm 2022
Play
Description:
It is said in ancient Hindu scriptures that the entire universe is the result of ‘lila’. A sanskrit word I love: that means play. As children, we played, without inhibitions, losing ourselves in our imagination and raw creativity. But as we grew up, we changed, and act often to conform to the norms and yardsticks of society. We act to be liked and accepted. We say whats politically correct, even if we are not being honest. Could it well be that in doing so, we have lost our individuality? If not, our soul? When was the last time we really played?
Acrylic on canvas
100 cm x 100 cm 2022
sUmMEr
Pleasures
Acrylic on canvas
100 cm x 100 cm
2022
Description:
Oh to be young and bursting with high energy. Like the warm heat of summer, this is the age when we court the pleasures of life with wild abandon. We go for broke. Feeling on top of the world. Invincible.
Passion
Mixed media on canvas
100 cm x 100 cm 2022
Description:
The heat is on. Fired with determination and fueled with invigorating energy, we think ourselves ready to take on the world. It is a time of relentless drive. Our passion is inexhaustible. Colors are bright, sizzling.
Zest
Description:
Colors remain brilliant expressing the zest one has for life in the summer of one’s existence. Colors dance to the moving energies in this stage of one’s life. The thought of the need to slow down never crosses one’s mind. Do we stop to consider if we are moving too fast?
But then, when one is young, one lives constantly on the move, even on the razor’s edge - one does not have time to make moments last. Often, one lives totally in projection.
Mixed media on canvas
100 cm x 100 cm 2022
Abundance
Acrylic on canvas
100 cm x 100 cm 2022
Description:
The work expresses the abundance of many things. Just like harvests reap fruit and produce in summer, the young mind generates a plethora of ideas. There is a great supply of energy, brute strength. Abundance abounds.
Description:
The season of summer is synonymous with holidays and good times. People tend to venture more outdoors, to bask in the warm sunlight.
It is a season bringing endless opportunities for enjoyment. Joy goes beyond happiness, beyond pleasures. It is a deep feeling of absolute contenment, of a fullness that can only be experienced with a sense of gratitude.
Joy
Acrylic on canvas
100 cm x 100 cm 2022
AutUMn
Success
Mixed media on canvas
100 cm x 100 cm 2022
Description:
The colors of autumn are warm, rich and intense. As we process the autumnal years of our lives, we often revel in our achievements; having attained a level of satisfaction, and success. Most of our goals at this third stage of life have been met. Colors denoting success are sumptous - the auspicious red and precious gold.
Changes
Mixed media on canvas
100 cm x 100 cm 2022
Description:
Autumn suggests a time for making changes. Like the falling leaves of the season, we start to slowly let go. These changes have to be made sooner or later, and if we do not take responsibility to change, life, nature, the universe, will force us to finally change.
Introspection II
Mixed media on canvas
100 cm x 100 cm
2022
Description:
As we retreat within more and more, we begin to introspect. Our ponderings deepen. We begin to spend more time on self healing. We get in touch with our spirituality. We question our needs, our desires, knowing deep within that our best bet would be to go with The Flow. For when you are in that Flow of Life, the Flow will support you.
Detachment
Description:
The climatic seasons abide by the Order of Nature. They work hand in hand with all that there is, guided by a higher intelligence. Flowers dont make a fuss when it is time to die. They sacrifice themselves and many give rise to fruit, so that humankind can eat. Detachment is one of the ways to a peaceful existence. It is only possible with proper discernment and discrimination.
Mixed media on canvas 100 cm x 100 cm 2022
Acceptance
Description:
In the beautiful Lord’s Prayer, it is said Thy will be done. Similarly, there is a Sanskrit wisdom Isvara Pranidhana, which means surrender to the will of God. This surrender does not come from a point of defeat, but from a place of humility and trust. This is one way to look at Acceptance. We waste too much energy fighting acceptance. Wanting things our way. Once there is acceptance, any problem can be solved. Whats more, the perception of the issue at hand is no longer that of a problem, but only one of many life’s situations.
Mixed media on canvas
100 cm x 100 cm 2022
wINtEr
Gratitude
Description:
In the winter of our lives, it is a time for gratitude. To reach one’s golden years, to look back on a life hopefully well spent, well lived. Knowing one has done one’s level best to fulfill one’s soul’s purpose. That no stone has been left unturned. That one has ideally left a mark, a legacy. Yes, the physical body might be frail but let the mind be filled with contentment and vitality.
Acrylic on canvas 100 cm x 100 cm
2022
Wisdom
Mixed media on canvas 100 cm x 100 cm 2022
Description:
Do not see the golden years as that of just old age. Rather see it as a time of living wisdom. Reflect on one’s life and the many experiences, adventures from which one has learnt. Be thankful for the knowledge others have shared with us. How this knowledge has been lived, experienced, and now has been transformed into wisdom. This wisdom has been well earned. Through blood, sweat and tears. It is now the time to pass on one’s wisdom. To share more now than ever.
The work is predominently blue, as this is a color associated with healing.
There is a mountain, often believed to be the abode of the gods. The mountain suggests one’s connection with divinity.
Solitude
Mixed media on canvas
100 cm x 100 cm 2022
Description:
In the winter stages of life, one often retreats inwards. Solitude is no longer a stranger. It becomes a constant companion. A friend. One prefers to be far from the maddening crowd. It is a time for contemplation, perhaps prayer. Pain might prevail: yet even if one may be in pain, one need not suffer. For although pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. White and pale blues color the canvas.
Enhanced by a scattering of semi precious moonstones, evoking the energies of the gentle moon.
Meditation
Mixed media on canvas
100 cm x 100 cm 2022
Description:
An expression in white, symbolising the presence of The Light. Yet white is all colors. Pass light through a prism and behold how the light splits into the seven colors of the rainbow. The golden years of the winter of our lives should ideally be spent in enjoying peaceful hours. In communion with nature, connecting with Spirit. It is a time of quietude, and gratitude. Sans fear and anxieties. As the physical body breaks down, the etheric body strengthens in faith.
Absorption
Description:
Finally, there is the inevitable. Death comes a calling. Death that horrid beauty as once described by a hindu swami. The artist does not see death as her end. It is only the demise of the physical body.
The artist believes in absorption: into the oneness of all that there is. Being still human, of course, there are apprehensions, anxieties. Hence, let us remind ourselves that one is much much more than just this physical body. That one is a spiritual being having a human experience.
Mixed media on canvas
100 cm x 100 cm
2022
Photos by kind courtesy of Mr Kil Hwan Chang, Fantapia The Kil Hwan Chang Art Museum, South Korea.
Photos by kind courtesy of Mr Kil Hwan Chang, Fantapia The Kil Hwan Chang Art Museum, South Korea.
www.gloriakeh.com
