Kim Tschoon Su, Strange tongue 9576, 1995, Acrylic on canvas, 200 x 200 cm © Kim Tschoon Su

Blue, reflecting the history of humanity beneath the open sky, holds significance in every culture of the world. Situated within the wavelength range of approximately 430 to 500 nanometers, blue generally evokes impressions of freshness and clarity. Yet it also possesses a fragile purity that can easily be compromised by the slightest addition of another hue.

Kim Tschoon Su’s work guides us toward a lucid and pristine blue reminiscent of the sky itself. His canvases dynamically unfold the entire spectrum of blue—from the raw white ground to the purest blue pigment. At times diffused and translucent as though gently seeping across the surface, at other times dense and impenetrable, resisting the viewer’s gaze with force, his blue traces a point of maximum tension on the surface where painting and spectator meet.

Within the history of painting, such a deployment of blue is highly distinctive. Yves Klein famously used what he termed IKB (International Klein Blue)—a darker, highly particulate blue—across a wide range of subjects. Yet this was less a conventional blue than one deliberately differentiated from other blues, refining and subdividing chromatic perception itself. In contrast, the uniqueness of Kim Tschoon Su’s blue lies not so much in the pigment itself as in its painterly operation. What both artists share is their use of blue as a conceptual signifier: in both Klein and Kim, blue was chosen out of conceptual conviction, stripped of descriptive or narrative function.

For Klein, IKB served as a means to reveal the character of subject or motif, while possessing little value as color in and of itself. For Kim, however, the concept and value of blue are inseparably intertwined with painterly gesture. In his work, the purity of the pictorial surface—its capacity to reveal itself without recourse to depiction or representation—constitutes a central concern. Here, painting itself becomes the subject, and blue becomes the primary concept through which that subject is disclosed.

This does not mean that all associative meanings of blue are excluded. Blue carries numerous symbolic resonances: sky and sea as physical referents; Kandinsky’s notions of spirituality, truth, and purity; in Chinese tradition, immortality and the cosmos; the Romantic symbolism of the “blue flower”; and the Expressionism of the Blauer Reiter group formed by Kandinsky and Franz Marc. In Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1910), Kandinsky noted that the deeper the blue, the more powerfully it draws the viewer toward the supernatural—an astute observation regarding the emotional depth inherent in the color. Fundamentally, blue is also closely associated with emotional resonance and harmony.

Such values of blue are likewise reflected in Kim Tschoon Su’s work, yet his canvases extend beyond established precedents. Another indispensable aspect in understanding his painting is gesture. Unlike Abstract Expressionism, often categorized as lyrical abstraction, Kim’s gestures do not appear to express hostility toward the world or psychological turmoil. Gesture is an indispensable element of painting; nearly all painters fill the canvas through movements large and small, leaving behind traces of paint that may appear rough or random, as though beyond control. In Jackson Pollock’s case, gesture was characterized less by personal will or psychology than by the fluid dynamism of paint itself—a suppression of individuality.

If Pollock made the pure traces of falling paint and an impersonal gesture the subject of his work, Kim Tschoon Su’s practice reveals a more human dimension. Yet his work is human without being overtly expressive; it is meditative rather than expressive. The concept of meditation does not imply an absence of energy or passion. Even a cursory examination of the relationship between meditation and qi (vital energy) reveals their close interconnection. Kim’s qi is restrained, controlled, and manifested through intense concentration—a conquered energy. Within this disciplined force lies a resonance possible only at the highest degree of tension.

It is evident that Kim’s paintings possess a distinctly visual musicality, akin almost to pure sound. If the viewer brings an elevated energy capable of balancing the force established within the work—and is prepared to receive the reciprocal qi generated between artist and spectator—then one may trace the resonance of this musical energy across the canvas. At that moment, the interaction between the artist’s and the viewer’s energies becomes an aesthetic journey into a non-figurative realm.

In this sense, Kim, like Pollock, takes gesture as the subject of his work. Yet through a more personal and vigorous gesture, he enables both artist and viewer to experience an order of consciousness and an elevated aesthetic value, drawing their shared presence toward a higher plane.

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