’Thorns’ as Survival: Artist Song Beom-su’s Pain Transformed on Canvas
Creatrip Team
6 months ago
Song Beom-su (age 83), a seminal Korean experimental and religious artist, channels lifelong losses and hardships into his signature thorn imagery. Orphaned of his mother early and having lost a son and a supportive sibling, Song uses the thorn—evoking Christ’s crown of thorns—to express unavoidable fate, ascetic suffering, and restrained vitality. A former Hongik University professor and director of Daejeon Museum of Art, Song began with politically resistant printmaking in the 1970s and later developed a unique tactile language influenced by tapestry during studies in Paris. His semi-relief thorn piece “Possibility 023-CV,CVI,CVII” is included in the group show “Against Ornament and Object” at Gallery Baton in Hannam-dong, Seoul, which runs through February 21. (gallery baton: a contemporary art gallery in Seoul; Hannam-dong: an upscale neighborhood in Seoul)
