The Goldmark Cultural Center’s Ruth Andres Gallery presents “The Road to Haenam”, a solo exhibition of new Korean brushwork paintings on handmade jangji paper by 2026 Goldmark international artist Sundoo Kim.

The exhibition is on display from 11/4 through 11/22. with an opening reception on Saturday 11/14 from 2:00pm to 4:00pm. The reception is a great opportunity to meet the artist and learn about his artwork.

Sundoo will also present an artist talk about his artwork on Saturday 11/14 at 3:00pm, during the exhibition reception.

About the Exhibition

A road exists to take us somewhere. Yet sometimes, it also leads us back through the life we have lived. 

Last year, the Korean novelist Han Seung-won was hospitalized for three months in Haenam, South Korea, while living with Alzheimer's disease. During his stay, he kept a diary from his hospital bed. Even as his memories began to fade, he continued to write. His diary is now being published as a series in the Haenam Newspaper, accompanied by my ink paintings. 

Han Seung-won's literature has always been deeply rooted in the land and sea of southern Korea and in the lives of the people who inhabit that region. For him, Haenam is more than a geographical place. It is the source of his life and the spiritual home of his literature. 

As I read his hospital diary, I find myself reflecting on the long journey of a human life. Memories may fade and the body may grow frail, but the traces of a life deeply inscribed in one's being do not simply disappear. Perhaps writing is an act of gathering the fragments of life that continue to shine, even as memory grows dim. 

For these works, I have painted lightly and spontaneously with ink. I did not wish to labor over the brush or fill the paper with elaborate details. Instead, I sought to capture the landscapes and emotions that arose as I read his words, using only a few brushstrokes. 

Sometimes a single line, sometimes the gentle spreading of ink, and sometimes the untouched space of the paper became my way of responding to the resonance of his writing. 

The beauty of ink painting lies in its ability to embrace so much with so little. The spreading and absorption of ink resemble the passage of time, while the traces left by the brush evoke the marks that life leaves behind. Just as empty space is an essential part of a painting, the moments we can no longer remember are not erased from the life we have lived. 

I did not intend to illustrate or explain his writing. Rather, I hoped that words and images might walk the same road together, each speaking in its own language. 

The Road to Haenam is a quiet journey shared by a novelist's hospital diary and a painter's brush.  It is a road leading toward Haenam, a road into memory, and ultimately a road toward rediscovering the life one has lived.  We all walk our own paths. And one day, somewhere along the way, we may find ourselves looking back upon the time we have traveled.  What, then, remains with us?  I place this question in the quiet shades of ink. 

About the Artist

Sundoo Kim is well-known as an artist throughout Korea and the US, and his artwork has been exhibited internationally. He is a professor of visual arts at Chungang University in Seoul, and his work includes portraiture and Korean painting on traditional jangji paper.

About the Goldmark Cultural Center’s International Artist Residency

Each year, the Goldmark artist community invites a visual artist from a different country to come to Dallas for a month-long artist residency at the Goldmark Cultural Center.

Whle in Dallas, the visiting artist is a full-fledged member of the Goldmark artist community, with their own Goldmark art studio, where the artist creates a new body of artwork. During the residency, the artist presents a series of art lectures and workshops at the Goldmark Cultural Center to share their process and technique with our artist community, and the artist's new artwork is displayed in one of the Goldmark art galleries as a featured exhibition.

Throughout the residency, there are plenty of opportunities for local artists to meet the international artist outside of the formal events and exhibitions by just visiting the artist at their Goldmark art studio or inviting the artist out to lunch/dinner or on day trips. By the end of the residency, hopefully the visiting artist and the local artists have benefited from the mutual exchange of knowledge, experience, and ideas that has taken place and forged a genuine connection between our artist community and theirs.

The residency program is directly supported by the generous purchases and contributions of artwork at our fundraising art auctions at the Goldmark Art Walks, from Goldmark artists, friends, and patrons.

The residency is named in memory of Nigerian ceramic artist Anthony Okonofua, a professor from the fine arts faculty of the University of Port Harcourt. Professor Okonofua was one of the first artists to participate in our International Artist Residency program in the autumn of 2019. He passed away in Nigeria in 2022 while on strike for better wages and working conditions for Nigerian university faculty.