Son Donghyun (b. 1980) has been reinterpreting the styles of East Asian traditional painting from a contemporary perspective. While traditional painting often embodies an interest in nature, Son’s work reflects the lives of contemporary figures.
 
Moreover, the artist reimagines the themes, subjects, and theories of traditional painting through his own artistic language, presenting new possibilities for contemporary interpretations of East Asian art.

Son Donghyun's early ‘Munjado’ series reinterprets Munjado, a type of folk painting (minhwa) from traditional Korean art. Originally created in the late Joseon Dynasty to promote the political ideology of the ruling class, Munjado in Son’s paintings reveals facets of today’s capitalist consumer cultures.
 
The artist adopts the Munjado format, which blends text and imagery, incorporating logos of contemporary global corporations like Nike and Coca-Cola. Within these logos, he reconstructs related imagery, reflecting the realities of modern society.

In addition, Son Donghyun has created Jeonsinsajo (傳神寫照) portraits of iconic figures from pop culture, such as characters from Hollywood films and Disney animations. The term ‘jeonsin’ (傳神) refers to expressing the essence or spirit of a subject through its form, while ‘sajo’ (寫照) denotes depicting the observed form of a subject. 
 
Son modernizes the aesthetics of Jeonsinsajo by portraying contemporary figures that symbolize the present era. His early works in this style captured images of fictional characters created by the media. Starting in 2008, however, his portrait series ‘Portrait of the King’ depicts Michael Jackson, hailed as the "King of Pop" and a monumental figure in popular culture, in the traditional format of eojin (royal portraits).

Son Donghyun believed that Michael Jackson, as a figure, could not be confined to a single definitive image. To explore Jackson's multifaceted persona, Son decided to create a series of 40 chronological portraits, each inspired by the singles released separately in the U.S. market.
 
The artist meticulously analyzed Jackson’s music videos to capture his full image for each single. For songs without music videos, Son referred to album cover photos, and in the absence of album photos, he studied promotional images from the corresponding release period.
 
In addition to capturing Jackson’s changing appearance over the years, Son distinguished the figure’s base (or throne) depending on the era, with 1989 marking a pivotal point when Jackson began being widely referred to as the “King of Pop.”
 
Portraits depicting Jackson prior to 1989 feature him seated on a wooden chair draped with leopard skin, with his feet resting on a hwamunseok (a traditional Korean straw mat), a composition reminiscent of Joseon-era scholar portraits. In contrast, post-1989 portraits show Jackson seated on an eojwa (a royal throne used by Korean kings), reflecting his elevated cultural status during this period.

Since 2014, Son has shifted his focus from depicting specific figures to creating new personas by translating the themes, subjects, and principles of traditional East Asian painting into the characteristics and appearances of imaginary individuals. This transition began with his 2014 solo exhibition, 《PINE TREE》, where he showcased portraits of characters personifying pine trees. Drawing on the symbolic meanings and qualities of pine trees, which frequently appear as subjects in traditional painting, Son reimagined them as anthropomorphized figures. 
 
In the following year, Son participated in the 15th SONGEUN Art Award Exhibition, where he introduced a series based on Xie He's Six Principles of Painting (繪畫六法: six points of consideration in the practice of painting). Son transformed each of the six principles into unique personas, reinterpreting their artistic concepts as martial arts skills possessed by warrior-like characters and portraying them with appearances inspired by contemporary culture. 
 
For instance, in Master Bone Method (2015), which personifies the principle of Bone Method in the Use of the Brush (骨法用筆), the figure is depicted as a warrior clad in armor inscribed with the words "骨法用” (Bone Method). The character wields a sword with a hilt engraved with the word “筆” (brush), emitting streams of ink, symbolizing their mastery of brush technique.

Meanwhile, in Master Division Planning (2015), which personifies the principle of Division Planning (經營位置, referring to skillful arrangement of composition and spatial positioning), the character’s body is divided across multiple hanging scrolls. While the scrolls collectively form a single, unified figure, they can be rearranged freely, allowing for endless compositional variations. 
 
The artist explained that if Division Planning were a person, it would have the ability to transcend time and space, teleporting instantaneously. This idea is visually reflected in the painting's details, such as motion lines and cloud-like transitions around the figure, evoking the teleportation effects commonly seen in comic books.

Meanwhile, Battlescape Z (The Cell Game) (2013), follows the techniques and aesthetics of traditional East Asian landscape painting (sansuhwa). The artist reinterpreted the backgrounds of individual battle scenes from Akira Toriyama’s manga Dragon Ball, seamlessly connecting them into a horizontally extended composition that narratively unfolds as a dynamic landscape painting. This approach aligns with traditional sansuhwa, which often encapsulates various times and spaces within a single frame. 
 
This work also connects to Son’s earlier ‘Island’ series (2010), in which he painted scenes from blockbuster movies across folding screens. Each panel of the screen functioned as both an independent composition and part of a larger whole when fully unfolded. Considering the folding screen’s unique characteristics, the artist sought out other formats with similar qualities, eventually leading to the scroll-based Battlescape Z (The Cell Game).

Son Donghyun's interest in and exploration of sansuhwa (East Asian landscape painting) persisted in his later works. In his 2015 solo exhibition 《Paper in Ink》, he showcased sumukhwa pieces created solely with paper and ink. This exploration reached a new level in his 2021 solo exhibition 《Early Spring》 at Perigee Gallery, where he presented large-scale paintings that fully embraced the framework of traditional sansuhwa. 
 
The centerpiece of the exhibition, the large-scale painting Early Spring (2020–2021), comprised ten canvases that filled an entire gallery wall. It was inspired by Early Spring, an 11th-century work by Chinese North Song painter Guo Xi, renowned for its masterful representation of the unique perspective and composition characteristic of East Asian sansuhwa. Son approached this canonical work from his own contemporary viewpoint, reinterpreting it in his distinct style.
 
To achieve this, Son divided the space constructed by the three-distance technique (method of creating depth in East Asian landscape painting) across ten separate canvases. Son makes use of various techniques to show the textures realized through intricate brushwork, including stencil work, rubbing, graffiti, and cartoon style. As a result, the mountain peaks and pine trees that once created a rigid hierarchy on a single canvas are replaced in the divided canvases with geometric, humorous contemporary designs.

Son Donghyun naturally began to focus more on the 'materials' rather than the subject of the painting while creating Early Spring, and introduced freer and more spontaneous artistic interventions into his work. His three-part exhibition project 《Paper in Ink》, which took place from 2015 to 2022, shows his exploration and experimentation with the materials of the painting. 
 
In the first part of the project in 2015, he presented landscape paintings created using only paper and meok (traditional black ink). In the second part, shown in 2020, he created works using both ink and various types of ink. In the final part in 2022, he focused on works centered around paper. For the last project, which focused on 'paper', he presented experimental ink landscapes that utilized the characteristics of hanji (traditional Korean paper).

The artist emphasized the characteristics of hanji, which, unlike today’s paper, can regain its original flat shape when water is applied, and has the physical property of being able to stand on its edges when folded. To highlight these traits, he used only meok, which adheres best to hanji. He also noticed that no information about paintbrushes, which are necessary for paintings, is provided in any captions or labels, and interpreted this as an open option to draw landscapes without using paintbrushes.
 
The artist crumples up hanji and sprays meok with a spray or stencil to express the rugged mountain terrain, and then sprays water to make the paper flat after the ink is completely dried. He also used toy train rails to draw waterfalls and expressed dragons and dark clouds on folded paper books and folding fans.
 
Rather than reinterpreting the traditional form of landscape painting, the artist tried to reflect the free spirit of old landscape painters. The artist, considering that painting landscapes may have been a pastime enjoyed by scholars, extended this thought by using various materials and techniques. This intention is reflected throughout the exhibition. One example is the depiction of a waterfall flowing down with dragons freely swimming, presented through multiple mounted works.

And in his solo exhibition 《Yong Ryong》 held at Gallery2 last year, Son Donghyun showcased a comprehensive display of his past artistic explorations and experiments. In this exhibition, Son focused on the traditional painting subjects he had explored, as well as popular images, and further concentrated on the style of Munjado, a form of painting that incorporates text.
 
For this exhibition, the space has shifted to munjado of the Sino-Korean character Ryong (龍: the dragon of the Orient), singularly analyzed and deconstructed in the various radicals as the character appears in the jajeon (字典: dictionary of chinese characters), imaginatively expositing into painterly spaces. Furthermore, the artist’s choice of modern materials such as acrylic and other inks, used with traditional sumuk (水墨) ink-wash techniques, English typographic graffiti methods, and mundane object-stencils add a complex layer that demarks and unites the space.
 
The image of the dragon, captured in logographical form of the calligraphic 龍, attached from head to tail in radical-form, as well as the woon (雲-cloud) on the nearby walls and fans populate the space as enriching, complementary elements to the space.

In this way, Son Donghyun has continuously explored the methodologies of East Asian traditional painting and the spirit of ancient literati, presenting new possibilities for contemporary painting. His works illuminate and experiment with concepts and media from East Asian painting that hold cultural and art historical significance, bringing them into the present and establishing a unique position in both domestic and international art history.

“As always, rather than any specific goal or dream, I think I will just continue to show new works based on whatever subject I find interesting next. Like the painters of the past who were endlessly free while painting, I also want to express my thoughts freely.” (Son Donghyun, National Registered Cultural Heritage Interview, April 28, 2022)

Son Donghyun graduated from the Department of Eastern Painting at Seoul National University and completed a master’s course at its graduate school. He began his artistic career with the group exhibition 《Funny Funny IV》 at Gallery Sejul (Seoul, Korea) in 2005, and gained recognition starting with his solo exhibition 《Pa-Ap Icon: 波狎芽益混》 at Art Space HUE (Seoul, Korea) in 2006.
 
His recent solo exhibitions include 《Yong Ryong》 (Gallery2, Seoul, 2024), 《Paper in Ink III》 (Gallery2, Seoul, 2022), 《Early Spring》 (Perigee Gallery, Seoul, 2021), 《PINE TREE》 (Space Willing N Dealing, Seoul, 2014), and more. He has also participated in group exhibitions at various art institutions, including the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul, Korea), Seoul Museum of Art (Seoul, Korea), Horim Museum (Seoul, Korea), DOOSAN Gallery (New York, USA), and Aando Fine Art (Berlin, Germany).
 
In 2017, He received the ‘Today’s Young Artist Award’ from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the grand prize at the ‘15th SONGEUN Art Awards’ in 2015. His works are part of the collections at various institutions, including the Seoul Museum of Art, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, and the SONGEUN Art and Cultural Foundation.

References

• 국립현대미술관, MMCA 작가와의 대화 | 손동현 작가 (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA), MMCA Artist Talk | Son Donghyun)
• 조선일보, 한 새파란 붓의 진지한 발칙 – 임근준, 2008.11.18 
• 다아트, [더 갤러리 (50) ‘손동현: 하더, 베터, 패스터, 스트롱거’] SF영화 주인공을 동양화 정면초상으로 그리다 – 이문정, 2020.08.13
• 국립현대미술관, 손동현 | 이른 봄 | 2020-2021 (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA), Son Donghyun | Early Spring | 2020-2021)
• 국가유산청, 먹으로 그려내는 무한한 상상력, 2022.04.28 
• 갤러리2, 손동현 (Gallery2, Son Donghyun)
• 갤러리2, 용 룡 (Gallery 2, Yong Ryong)