[Gallery Stroll] Red Robe, Black Lines... Danjong Returns with the Face of Wounds

Red is traditionally a color used for auspicious occasions. It appears on folding screens at celebrations, in children's first birthday costumes, and in the ceremonial displays of palaces. However, the red robe that Yongseon Seo paints on Danjong is different. It is closer to a wound than to a celebration. Rather than the color one wears on a joyful day, it looks like the color of a tragedy imposed far too early in life.

Danjong, Maewoldang_2010_Oil on canvas_175x143cm. Gallery Mim

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In the exhibition hall, that red catches the eye first. Only after that does the face come into view. The faces are far from serene. The eyes, not fully closed, seem to gaze into the distance, while the nose and cheeks are bent rather than neatly aligned. The black lines do not firmly define the subject but instead make it appear unsettled. Though the figures are standing, from the viewer's perspective, it feels more as if they are enduring something. It resembles less the portrait of a king and more the face of someone who has learned of their fate far too soon.

Danjong is a name that recurs frequently in Korean history. A few words-"the ill-fated king"-are often enough to summarize his story. Yet such summaries always end too quickly. Yongseon Seo’s paintings stand on the side that refuses to believe in those overly swift explanations. He does not try to organize the events, but instead clings to the lingering expressions. Rather than focusing on grand terms such as dethronement, exile, or death, he spends time observing the textures of the faces that have experienced those events. Rather than narrating history, he asks how that history remains etched on a human body.

For instance, in paintings that place the young Danjong at the center, it is the hands that catch your eye before the surrounding figures. Some rest on a shoulder, others stand close by. The hands might appear protective, or as if preventing escape. Power is often thought to be remote, but in truth, it comes this close to the body. The hands know before words do. This painting makes you notice that simple fact all over again.

Gyeongju Namsan_2006, Pen on lined paper, 23x15 cm. Gallery MIM

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In the drawings, the narrative becomes looser, but also more poignant. Even when a face is roughly blurred in black ink, it remains strangely vivid. It is not clarity from skillful drawing, but rather because it cannot be erased. The fewer the explanations, the longer the expression lingers. Yongseon Seo’s Danjong has such an expression. It is closer to a trace that refuses to be erased than to a completed portrait.

The quick sketches of Cheongnyeongpo, scribbled in a notebook, also linger in the mind. A pavilion, a hillside, a few flowers, hurried lines. It feels less like a well-drawn landscape and more like a memory captured before it could slip away. The hand is not trying to build a monument, but only to leave a memo. In a way, that is often how history remains. There is a kind of memory that endures longer in awkward doodles or rushed notes than in grand phrases or neatly organized records.

This is also why it feels natural that Kim Sisup is invoked in the exhibition. If only Danjong were present, the story might end with the sorrow of a child king. With Kim Sisup, however, the situation changes. The tragedy does not end with the dead, but continues on in the life of the one who witnessed it. The word "loyalty" is trapped in old textbooks, but in reality, perhaps it was something like this: a mind unable to forget what would have been easier forgotten, a disposition that cannot let go of what could have ended with a simple compromise with the world. If Danjong is the face of loss, Kim Sisup is the face of one who had to live while holding onto that loss.

Gyeongju Namsan_2006, Pen on lined paper, 23x15 cm. Gallery MIM

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These are precisely the kinds of people to whom the artist’s historical paintings remain attached. Rather than heroes immortalized by grand names, they are those pushed to the margins of events, the expressions edged out of the records. In his paintings, the center and the periphery keep changing places. Even when painting a king, the face stands out more than the crown; even when depicting an event, the atmosphere remains more than the storyline. Perhaps that is the nature of history itself. Often, what remains is not the year or the name of the event, but the question of who stood there and with what expression.

The exhibition format-spread across several spaces in Seoul and in Yeongwol-strangely fits this theme. Danjong’s life, too, could never stay in one place. He was pushed from the palace to exile, from the throne to the status of a deposed king. Kim Sisup also lived a life closer to wandering than to settling. Thus, this exhibition seems more true to itself when it is somewhat dispersed rather than neatly arranged in a single space. Some lives are better understood when divided among several venues, rather than confined to one exhibition hall.

Nosangun-Cheongnyeongpo_1993_Oil on canvas_130x110cm. Gallery MIM

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After leaving the exhibition, Danjong no longer remains just the child king from the textbooks. He is remembered as a single red robe, a few black lines, and a face that keeps trembling. Kim Sisup, too, comes closer to being remembered not as a loyal retainer, but as one who could never forget. We usually learn history through grand events. But what lingers in people’s hearts for a long time is rarely those grand terms.

It is a single hand on a shoulder, a face that could never fully be erased, a few hurried lines across a notebook page. It seems that Yongseon Seo has long held onto those small things. Standing in front of the paintings of Danjong displayed this spring, one might feel, for a moment, that bygone tragedies are not yet entirely in the past. Such thoughts are rare these days. The exhibition runs until May 29.

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