Despite having lived for over seven decades Oh Se-yeol remains a child at heart. His first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, titled simply by his name, strives to evoke personal memories and emotions through the simplistic visual language of collages and doodling.
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Born in Seoul, Oh has always wanted to be a painter. He was encouraged by his art teacher when he was young and later went on to receive a bachelor's and master's degrees in fine arts.
"My works are a reflection of my memory," he said "The Korean War broke out when I was five, and after the war, I saw many children without their parents or living on the fringes of society."
He wanted to indirectly express the children's loneliness and innocence in his work as they remain relevant in the present day.
Though he specialized in Western art at school, he prefers a different approach to painting. "I'm professionally trained, but applying complicated techniques takes away the innocence," he said.
The doodling and scribbling in Oh's work conveys a childlike innocence, it is his language of sharing past wounds and giving comfort to others.
"When children draw, they do not care what constitutes a good painting. They focus only on their feelings at that moment," he said.
Upstairs in the gallery, you will see a few older paintings, mostly side portraits from people on canvas. "I think that looking at a person straight ahead is too confrontational," said Oh. "My figures are giving more of an impression rather than a painting of an actual human."
Even though Oh had been drawing for more than five decades, his artwork ages backward. Older paintings like Untitled 1985 and Untitled 1992 resemble chalkboard doodles. He also finds that many people gravitate towards primary colors when getting older.
The bright colors and childlike motifs often gets him mistaken as a newly risen artist. But Oh upholds his unique approach with his masterful painting skills. What looks like a simple monochromatic background is a mix of several colors applied with a spatula.
The primary color choices are heavily presented in recent years, the diary-like structured painting in the blue, mustard yellow backdrop, and two with different intensities of blue backdrop were painted in 2023. You could also see fuchsia pink and green paintings from 2022.
"The use of primary colors could be a simple representation of innocence and childlike elements, but I would like to leave it for the audience to interpret it," Oh said.
Interestingly, he also applied an audience-centered approach by not giving a proper name to his artworks.
Simply naming all his paintings Untitled, he leaves more freedom for his audience to imagine the meanings of his works. Oh's paintings are a time capsule of existence and reflections of feelings.
One eye-catching feature is the indifferent presence of materials and motifs - allowing viewers to make meaning out of the lack of pattern. "I collect small pebbles and tiny pieces of materials with interesting shapes from the ground when I go on walks," he said.
Paintings like Untitled 2020 feature half of a Korean chopstick and packaging of carbon pencils, Untitled 2022 in green have cut-outs from cardboard packaging of choco pie - a Korean favorite snack and yakgwa - a traditional Korean snack also known as honey cookies.
To Oh, including meaningless scraps in his works gives them a purpose. He finds joy in coming across unexpected objects and transforming these random fragments into new entities.
You will feel overwhelmed by the numbers flooded all over the canvas in most of Oh's paintings. "I draw the numbers in an imperfect, childlike kind of writing," he said. "Regardless of nationality, numbers are always the first few things we learn."
Oh hopes people will reconnect with their memories when they see the numbers on his paintings.
Oh, Se-yeol's Solo Exhibition is on show at Soluna Fine Art until April 27.
