/ The Bards of Time and Space

Space is still; once motion sets in, time begins to flow.
When the form of space and the rhythm of time interweave, abstract spacetime unfolds, inviting us to gaze and to wander.

This is a dialogue spanning generation and geographies. After returning from Italy, Ho Kan explored the poetic within rationality through bright color‑planes and geometric construction; Korean artist Soonik Kwon materializes the concept of “qi” (氣) on canvas through brushwork and texture. Though from different eras and cultural backgrounds, both adopt abstraction as their mode of witnessing the world — in minimalism they contain a spiritual space of poetry.

At ALIEN Art Centre, this exhibition summons anew the core significance of “abstraction” in the East Asian context. “Abstraction” is not simply a formal language, but a process of cultivation — a way of inward viewing. In the juxtaposition of Ho Kan’s order and Soonik Kwon’s flow lies a breathing rhythm that mirrors the resonance between Eastern spirit and contemporary perception.

In the gallery, Ho Kan’s works present the mysterious imagery of reason; Soonik Kwon’s canvases evoke landscapes that diffuse like breath, giving rise to a sensuous flux of “qi”. The curation takes “form” and “qi” as its axis: one reflects the other. Ho Kan builds a spiritual space through the order of form; Soonik Kwon extends spiritual rhythm through the interweaving of qi. The tension between them releases abstraction from being locked in historical time‑frames, and returns it to the site of perception — the viewer’s breath, bodily sensing and emotional waves become the extension of the work.

“Wandering through spacetime” invites viewers to use “seeing” as the portal into memory and spirit, to experience anew the spiritual continuity of East Asian abstraction through layers of vantage. This is not merely a conversation of ideas, but a question about “abstraction as contemporary cultivation”.

Spanning from 1955–2024, the exhibition includes paintings, object installations and early manuscripts, and is organized into five gallery zones: “Order of Form · Flow of Qi”, “Re‑Gazing East Asian Abstraction”, “From Stillness to Movement: Dots, Squares, Triangles”, “Between Form & Qi: The Portal to Eternity”, and “Painting as the Bridge Between Us”. Within this, viewers will feel cultural and spiritual strata, and even if unfamiliar with abstract painting, can — guided by the gallery’s circulation, light, and furnished viewing angles — through bodily sensing of energy resonance — leave with a sense of “being opened”.


“Order of Form · Flow of Qi”

Ho Kan indulges in minimalist constructions of geometric shapes, opening a modern visual language for the East. He treats creation as a spiritual concentration, letting the order of “form” become the path inward. His vocabulary not only influenced the development of abstract art but seeped into visual art thinking across Asia. The “meditative minimalism” of his canvases probes the subconscious and the accumulation of experience, and still exists in how we see, design and construct the world.

Soonik Kwon’s canvases, with their “meditative dot‑patterns”, allow light to flicker in the breath of the moment. His work materializes the meeting point of matter and time, thought and sensation. Through repetitive point‑drawing, accumulation and then rubbing graphite to generate gloss, this is not simply repetition of form but a meditative act of “emptying the self”. Those shimmering traces are the responses won by his ongoing discipline of drawing closer to existence.

Though from different generations and cultural backgrounds, their creative cores point in the same direction: “Abstraction is not about seeing ‘what’, but about a way of feeling one’s own existence.” Seeing is not an external act, but an inner practice.


“Re‑Gazing East Asian Abstraction”

| Chinese character space and spatial modelling |

Ho Kan drew inspiration from the spatial modelling of Chinese characters, prompting new paths of thought. He skillfully uses color composition, oblique lines or asymmetric shapes to create three‑dimensionality within a two‑dimensional plane and evoke visual spatial rhythms. Through “subtraction” he pursues the poetic essence of form; every line, each relationship of shape and space is carefully considered—like a calligrapher laying brush.

| Seeing black and yet seeing light |

Soonik Kwon rubs graphite onto tiles and through the process of repeated self‑emptying, shows that even in silence a response can be born. The graphite or tiles, though physically visible, carry the intangible concept of “time”. They are like energy after time has been compressed. The ink‑black tiles emit gloss and contain personal memory and silent messages, inviting the viewer, in shifting viewpoints, to “see black and yet see light, see the object and see the mind”.


“From Stillness to Movement: Dots, Squares, Triangles”

For Ho Kan, the length of line, the size of dot, the depth of color corresponds to musical composition. He likens the artist to a conductor — through the painting he transmits atmosphere and overall effect to the viewer. He flexibly uses dots, squares, triangles and short lines to suggest humankind’s sensing of the cosmos, echoing Eastern yin–yang harmony and fundamental cosmic principles, and containing an infinite yearning for all things.
Soonik Kwon treats creation as cultivation, using stacking and polishing behaviors as his path toward awakening. The circle, square, triangle in his works symbolize heaven, earth and humanity. These forms sometimes become the background, sometimes are created abstractly within the picture. He mixes fine earth into his pigment, so that color becomes a carrier of time’s accumulation and inner experience. It contains impressions of childhood, reflecting the various permutations of time, memory and experience.

Ho Kan’s time is “condensed”; Soonik Kwon’s time is “flowing”. Their dialogue interweaves to form a “tensioned harmony”. Viewers are invited to re‑sense how time moves between the two, advancing in the “rhythm of breath”.


“Between Form & Qi: The Portal to Eternity”

Ho Kan’s works carry mystery—within the limited they approach the infinite; minimalist yet rich, containing a kind of stillness as if gazing into the deep sea.
Soonik Kwon through repeated brushwork and extended color‑layers generates “gaps” and “event‑traces” where trauma and healing entwine. These “gaps” are not static fissures but dynamic boundaries drifting with colour; past and future meet in the “now”.
“Silence” is not merely a still state but a process of deep inward reflection. It is not simply a resistance to external clamor but a process of adjusting inner balance, gradually retracing the self and its power. Here, abstraction is not an escape from reality, but an entry into deeper reality.


“Painting Is the Bridge Between Us”

Ho Kan and Soonik Kwon symbolize two key moments in Asian contemporary art development. Ho Kan rose in the 1950s and is the pioneer of Chinese‑language geometric abstraction; Soonik Kwon emerged in the 1980s–1990s, refining and integrating Asian modernist innovation. Ho Kan moved to Taiwan during wartime, personally experiencing cultural displacement and uprooting — this experience profoundly shaped his pursuit of a language that transcends borders. Soonik Kwon grew up in post‑war Korea undergoing rapid modernization. Compared with the Korean post‑war monochrome, quiet and rational visual trajectory, his works include an extra layer of intriguing materiality, emphasizing the vitality extended through multiple viewer perspectives in space. In the increasingly diverse global art terrain, the dialogue between these two artists leads us to explore our culture‑rooted philosophical genes, so as to participate further in the generation of an international aesthetics. We hope this exhibition will provide a rich panorama of Asian abstraction, and invite viewers to sense the essence of existence within the context of “abstraction”.