Soonik Kwon (1959 — ) , a leading figure in contemporary abstract art in Korea, Soonik Kwon builds his practice on the layering of time and color. Using graphite to fill the spaces between layers of pigment, he polishes the surface until it radiates a unique inner sheen. His materials often include a mixture of fine soil and paint, and through repetitive brushstrokes and expansive color fields, he generates “interstices” — event-traces that evoke both trauma and healing. These interstices are not static cracks, but dynamic thresholds shaped by shifting color, symbolizing moments where the past and future converge in the “now.” Each work may take weeks or even months to complete, involving meditative repetition and physical labor that embody a state of “egoless immersion,” spiritually akin to the Buddhist mandala.

Kwon sees his works as silent yet resolute fields of meditation. Dots and lines are meticulously layered, scraped, and polished, then coated with natural graphite that records the sedimentation of time. Compared to the rational and restrained visual language of postwar Korean monochrome painting, Kwon’s works introduce a compelling materiality that reflects the convergence of matter and time, thought and sensation. In series such as Self-Portrait, he explores how a person recovers and reclaims the self after facing despair and loss. By applying graphite to tiles, the deep black surface emits a quiet glow, inviting viewers, as they shift perspectives, to “see light within darkness, and objects that reflect the self.”

Born in Seoul in 1959 and raised in Mungyeong, a city known for its coal mines, Kwon retains vivid childhood impressions of coal’s latent luminosity — light held within darkness — an image that has become central to his artistic vocabulary. To him, graphite and ceramic tiles, while physically tangible, carry the immaterial concept of time.

After graduating in the 1980s from Sejong University’s Department of Fine Arts in Seoul, Kwon developed a strong interest in Korean traditional patterns. Seeking deeper understanding of their forms and symbolic meanings, he studied traditional Korean ceramics. The semi-abstract motifs found in buncheong ware (粉青陶) led him to a more profound engagement with abstraction. He later incorporated subjects from folk painting (minhwa) and developed a distinctive technique known as inlay painting, through which he gained new insights into texture and tactility — qualities that have deeply influenced his mature painting practice.

In 2007, while traveling in Africa, Kwon lost his camera. This loss prompted him to abandon photography-based conceptual planning and to reconsider the relationship between humans and time. At the time, he was reading Everyday Osho, and the encounter between the book’s words and his lived experience sparked a shift: inspired by Korean Seon (선, Zen Buddhism) and Buddhist ideas of “egolessness” and the “interstice,” he began to focus on living fully in the present — unburdened by future anxieties or past regrets.

In 2008, Kwon participated in a residency in Alacant, Spain, where he began working with graphite as a primary material. By 2012, his practice had transitioned fully into abstraction with the development of the Absence of Ego series. For Kwon, “absence of ego” represents a state of deep immersion. The process of dotting, layering, and polishing graphite into luminous surfaces is not merely a formal exercise, but a meditative act of “emptying the self.” The glimmering marks that result are responses received through disciplined spiritual practice — his effort to draw nearer to existence itself.

For Kwon, silence is not simply the absence of sound, but a state of immersion reached through deep introspection. It is not merely a resistance to external noise, but a method of recalibrating one’s inner balance and gradually recovering the self. The “physical labor” of his process becomes a simultaneous cultivation of body and spirit, and the completed work stands as an act of focused self-inquiry. “I hope my works offer viewers a space to project their own emotions and experiences — even if only for a moment — to gaze inward. If my art can serve as that connective medium, it would bring me great peace,” Kwon reflects.

Soonik Kwon has held over 30 solo exhibitions and participated in more than 50 group exhibitions across Asia, North America, and Europe. He has taken part in artist residencies at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Jeju, Korea, and in Spain. His works are held in the collections of institutions including the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul), the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (Venezuela), the Tolima Museum of Art (Colombia), the Wenzhou Era Art Museum (China), and the Seongnam Art Center (Korea).