Little Things, Delightful Greetings

Hakgojae Gallery presents Little Things, Delightful Greetings , a solo exhibition by KANG Yo Bae (b. 1952), on view from August 12 to September 12, 2026. Marking the artist's first exhibition at Hakgojae Gallery i n four years, the exhibition begins with a simple yet attentive gesture: welcoming the small and easily overlooked presences that quietly inhabit everyday life. Born on Jeju Island, where nature and history have long formed the foundation of both his life and artistic practice, KANG emerged as a leading figure of Korea's Minjung Art movement in the 1980s, producing paintings that confronted the complexities of modern Korean history and the contradictions of contemporary society. Yet another enduring foundation of his practice lies in his profound attentiveness to , and reverence for the natural world. In this exhibition, that expansive vision turns inward, inviting viewers into intimate encounters with the quiet landscapes and humble forms of life that have long existed around us.

KANG Yo Bae's paintings do not begin with the mere representation of the visible world. For KANG, nature is not simply a subject to be painted, but a way of understanding the world and the ground upon which the layers of lived time have accumulated. Having long made Jeju the center of both his life and artistic practice, he has experienced the rhythm of the seasons through direct, embodied experience. His landscapes are never confined to a specific place. Instead, they become landscapes imbued with thought and lived experience— uigyeong ( 意景 ). Rather than depicting what lies before the eye, KANG paints the textures of time embedded within the world itself. This approach extends consistently through his historical paintings, including those centered on the Jeju 4·3 Incident. For KANG, landscape is never a stage upon which tragedy is dramatized. It is an honest witness, bearing countless memories and the weight of passing time. Without confining himself to grand ideological discourse or the label of Minjung Art, KANG inscribes life itself into the landscape.

This exhibition is the natural outcome of that enduring way of seeing. The expansive landscapes that have long defined KANG's paintings now come to rest on the easily overlooked: a solitary tree, a single fallen fruit, or a stray cat passing quietly by. This is neither the result of a change in artistic outlook nor a dramatic turning point. Rather, it brings him closer to the world he has inhabited from the very beginning, observing it with greater intimacy and precision. It is the natural culmination of a vision that has long understood even the smallest and most inconspicuous forms of life to exist within the same order as the greater natural world.

The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty understood human beings and nature not as separate entities, but as beings fundamentally intertwined with one another. From this perspective, KANG Yo Bae's paintings likewise do not present nature as an object to be observed by human beings. Instead, it is encountered as a living presence with which we coexist. Yet KANG does not seek to explain this relationship through philosophical concepts or theoretical frameworks. By allowing nature simply to appear as it is, he dissolves the distance between observer and observed, inviting us to experience ourselves as part of the same living world.

At a time when climate change and ecological change continue to bring recurring disasters and uncertainty, Little Things, Delightful Greetings neither offers a direct critique of contemporary reality nor advances a particular message. Instead, it gently invites us to reflect on the fundamental relationships and the sense of coexistence that sustain life. The "delightful greetings" that KANG extends are not expressions of wonder before an unfamiliar world. Rather, they are a way of welcoming anew the small presences that have long existed beside us, yet have too often passed unnoticed.