Ken Gun Min

b. 1976, Seoul, Korea

BiographyKen Gun Min’s paintings explore intimacy, masculinity, and representation across cultures, while employing a mixture of western-style oil paints, Korean pigments, embroidery, and beading on raw canvas. Often featuring nude and queer-coded men, his portraits and lush landscapes concoct fanciful idylls where longing, melancholy, and euphoria manifest irrespective of expectations imposed on people in daily life.

Born in Seoul, Min lived in San Francisco, Zurich, and Berlin before settling in Los Angeles. With this experience of Eurocentric capitals, his practice calls first-world-oriented perspectives into question. For the past several years, Min has focused on the creation of cross-cultural figures and spaces by integrating eastern and western painting styles on a single plane. This practice investigates the way figures and landscapes can be colored by the material and stylistic choices made in their rendering. In both his technical application and the scenes he composes, Min challenges conceptions of sexuality, gender, and race, especially as it is depicted in Western art history. (https://nazariancurcio.com/artists/239-ken-gun-min/)

Person TypeIndividual