Shatto Gallery is pleased to present Phos Hilaron, a solo exhibition by Hyunae Kang, on view from April 12 to May 3, 2025.
The title, meaning “Radiant Light” in Greek, perfectly encapsulates Kang’s artistic practice—an exploration of light, color, and spirituality through a deeply personal and meditative process.
Kang’s work masterfully bridges Korean and Western artistic traditions, offering a powerful departure from the austere minimalism of Dansaekwa. Instead, she embraces a maximalist approach, using vivid, prismatic colors and intricate textures to create compositions that resonate with luminous energy and spiritual depth.
In this exhibition, Kang’s distinctive style transforms the canvas into a radiant field of overlapping brushstrokes. Her use of impasto—thick layers of paint applied with deliberate strokes—imbues each surface with both tactile presence and ethereal glow. The radiant colors are heightened by interwoven textures, offering a multisensory journey that reflects her belief in art as an act of contemplation and faith.
Phos Hilaron showcases Kang’s evolving mastery while inviting viewers to experience her art as spiritual practice. Her paintings emerge through layers of Korean text and symbols, constantly overlapping and shifting until nearly illegible in their repetition. The result is artwork that reverberates with quiet power, evoking the sacred and sublime through the convergence of the visible and transcendent.
Join us at Shatto Gallery for this illuminating exhibition that promises to be both a visual and spiritual revelation, offering viewers an immersive journey into Kang’s visionary world where art becomes a living, breathing act of faith.
About the Artist
Hyunae Kang (b. 1959, Chungcheongnam-do, Korea) received her BFA and MFA in sculpture from Ewha Womans University, where she also studied painting, drawing, printmaking, and traditional Korean ceramics. Her career launched in 1991 with a solo exhibition at Gallery Hyundai in Seoul, followed by significant shows at the Art Museum of Seoul (1993) and the Korea Fine Art Grand Exhibition (1995). Kang’s early sculptural work explored the tension between geometric modernism and organic abstraction, combining pure forms with primordial elements through contrasting materials like polished bronze, wood, marble, and obsidian. After immigrating to the United States in 1993, Kang transitioned to painting while maintaining her interest in texture and natural forms. Her paintings departed from the monochromatic Dansaekhwa movement, instead embracing vibrant colors influenced by American artists like Rothko, Motherwell, and Frankenthaler. Over the past decade, Kang has exhibited extensively internationally, with solo shows across the United States, Monaco, Mexico, Russia, and Italy, as well as group exhibitions in Korea, Hong Kong, and China. Her recent career retrospective, “Dialogues with the Sacred, ” was held at the Muzeo Museum and Cultural Center in Anaheim, California.
