{"id":245,"date":"2026-03-30T20:07:52","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T20:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kstories.kr\/en\/cul260331002-en\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T20:07:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T20:07:52","slug":"cul260331002-en","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kstories.kr\/en\/cul260331002-en\/","title":{"rendered":"Artist Yang Dal-seok, ‘Painter of Innocence’ of His Hometown Geoje, Featured in Special Exhibition at Gallery Yesulsum"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Gallery Yesulsum Hosts Special Exhibition of Modern and Contemporary Art Master Yang Dal-seok<\/div>\n
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Gallery Yesulsum is holding a special exhibition titled ‘Yang Dal-seok: The Geoje Artist Who Painted Shepherds and Paradise.’ This exhibition will showcase works by painter Yang Dal-seok, who established a unique ‘fairy-tale realism’ in Korean modern and contemporary art history, depicting the lyrical sentiment and childlike innocence of his hometown, Geoje Island, and the Gyeongsangnam-do region. It will be a special opportunity to illuminate his pastoral utopian world of painting.<\/p>\n

Geoje Artist Yang Dal-seok Featured in Special Hometown Exhibition<\/h2>\n

Gallery Yesulsum will host ‘Yang Dal-seok: The Geoje Artist Who Painted Shepherds and Paradise,’ a special exhibition, from April 1 to April 19, 2026, at Gallery Yesulsum Hall 2. Admission to this exhibition is free, and the gallery will be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.<\/p>\n

This special exhibition is hosted by Haejo Eum Museum, Gallery Yesulsum, and Yang Dal-seok Museum, and organized by Art Corporation Gaia. The Geoje Culture and Arts Council (tentative name) sponsors the event. The exhibition venue is located in Sodong-ri, Irun-myeon, Geoje-si.<\/p>\n

A Modern and Contemporary Art Master Who Established ‘Fairy-Tale Realism’<\/h2>\n

Painter Yeosan (\u9ece\u5c71) Yang Dal-seok (1908\u20131984) was born in Seongnae Village, Sadeung-myeon, Geoje-si, Gyeongsangnam-do. He is recognized in the Korean modern and contemporary Western art scene as ‘the painter of innocence’ and ‘a representative artist of pastoral landscapes.’<\/p>\n

After completing his studies at the Imperial Art School in Japan, he participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions. He served as president of the Busan Art Association and was an invited and recommended artist for the National Art Exhibition. This exhibition will feature approximately 40 oil landscape paintings, portraits, and watercolors, including pieces from the collections of Haejo Eum Museum and Yang Dal-seok Museum.<\/p>\n

In particular, this exhibition offers a rare opportunity to view works that were loaned to the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Deoksugung, for the 80th Anniversary of Liberation exhibition ‘Nostalgia: Yearning for Home,’ and to the Busan Art Association’s (Busan Misuhyeop) 80th Anniversary Special Exhibition ’80 Years of Breath! A Glimpse into Busan Art’ held at the Busan Cultural Center.<\/p>\n

A Pastoral World of Harmony Between Humans and Nature, Purity, and Hope<\/h2>\n

Lim Ho-geon, director of Haejo Eum Museum, explained that painter Yang Dal-seok used the rural landscapes of his hometown Geoje, along with cows, shepherds, and children, as main subjects to depict a peaceful world where humans and nature coexist harmoniously. The artist sublimated the suffering of reality into warm and pure images of childlike innocence, drawing from memories of his impoverished and arduous childhood.<\/p>\n

His works are characterized by simplified forms and soft colors, conveying comfort and emotion to the viewer. The recurring appearance of cows and children in his paintings carries symbolic meanings related to labor and life, hope and the future. This represents a pastoral world that transcends simple rural landscapes, expressing innate human purity and a yearning for an ideal life.<\/p>\n

A Curator’s Perspective: Reflecting the Will to Overcome Personal Suffering and Contemporary Reality<\/h2>\n

Ham Ui-jeong, curator at Gallery Yesulsum (Ph.D. in Literature), defined Yang Dal-seok’s artistic world as ‘pastoral utopian painting’ that portrays human purity and hope through rural themes and childlike innocence. She emphasized that behind this artistic world lies the artist’s will to overcome personal suffering and contemporary reality.<\/p>\n

Curator Ham added that visitors can enjoy art tourism in Geoje-si, a maritime cultural tourism city, through various exhibitions, including the special exhibition ‘Island, The Way of Love’ (an installation art exhibition) at Gallery Yesulsum Hall 1, and the upcoming joint exhibition with Haejo Eum Museum, ‘Light, Color, Line, Love – Four Honam Masters Oh Ji-ho, Lim Jik-sun, Bae Dong-shin, Son Sang-gi’.<\/p>\n

This special exhibition offers a valuable opportunity to reflect on the depth and meaning of Korean modern and contemporary art through the works of a master from Geoje Island. Visitors are expected to experience comfort and emotion in the peaceful and pure pastoral world depicted by painter Yang Dal-seok.<\/p>\n

English-Korean version<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gallery Yesulsum Hosts Special Exhibition of Modern and Contemporary Art Master Yang Dal-seok Gallery Yesulsum is holding a special exhibition…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[229,62,227,228,226],"class_list":["post-245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-art-exhibition","tag-culture","tag-gallery-yesulsum","tag-geoje-island","tag-yang-dal-seok"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kstories.kr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kstories.kr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kstories.kr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kstories.kr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kstories.kr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kstories.kr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kstories.kr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kstories.kr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kstories.kr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kstories.kr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}