Portrait of Hyangmok Baik, courtesy of the artist.
The work of Hyangmok Baik continues in a tradition of bold, somewhat crude, almost post-aesthetic contemporary painting. His work combines a flattened perspective; a raw, heavily-worked surface; unpredictable colour-schemes; and irreverent subject matter – from disembodied heads to ducks to platters of fruit or bottles of champagne – the paintings seem atemporal, acultural, ahistorical, and, paradoxically, universally relatable. Through recontextualization, deconstruction and a fair amount of dark humour, Baik’s paintings seem just as relevant in California just as much as they articulate the laissez-faire, post-punk lifestyle of a South Korean millennial.
Hyangmok Baik's works have been exhibited at Anzai Gallery in Tokyo (2024), Saatchi Gallery in London (2022), as well as OTI Gallery in Hong Kong (2022) and Los Angeles (2021).
