​KWAK Hoon

Born in 1941 in Daegu, based in Gyeonggi

Representative artist of the Korean Pavilion at the 46th Venice Biennale in 1995

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HALAAYT (2018 - ongoing)

HALAAYT, a recent series of paintings by Kwak Hoon, is inspired by the ancient Inuit whale hunt. The title of the work HALAAYT means “something sent by the ancestors" or "a gift from God," an Inuktitut word. It refers to the belief that the act of hunting whales is a connection to the ancestral spirits. The artist captures the universal human emotions of the will to live, the fear and desire for the unknown world, as well as the animism through the Inuit whale hunt on canvas with his dynamic brushstrokes.