Moon Soo Man

• Profile

  Nationality: South Korea

  Born 1962 in Korea

• CV

  Education

  • Hongik University Graduate School of Fine Arts in the Department of Painting

  Exhibitions

  Solo

  • 2025 INFINITE ORDER : MOONSOOMAN Invitational Exhibition (Gallery Zeinxeno,

    Seoul/Korea)

  • 2025 Moon Sooman Invitational Exhibition (The Blanz Hangang Gallery, Seoul/Korea)

  • 2025 Motion in Stillness :: MOONSOOMAN (Art Therapy Studio Femiosis, Wettrust Headquarters 1F/2F, Gyeonggi-do/Korea)

  • 2025 SERENITY IN MOTION : MOONSOOMAN (Gallery Kitanozaka, Kobe/Japan)

  • 2025 SERENITY IN MOTION : MOONSOOMAN Invitational Exhibition (Opo Art Museum, Gyeonggi-do/Korea)

  • 2024 Cloud & Cloud: MOONSOOMAN Invitational Exhibition by Seraphim (Ace Avenue 2F, Seoul/Korea)

  • 2024 SERENITY IN MOTION : MOONSOOMAN Invitational Exhibition (TTE Art Gallery, Seoul/Korea)

  • 2024 A WAVE OF DOTS (Hyundai Department Store-Pangyo 6F Art Lounge Seraphim, Seongnam City/Korea)

  • 2024 MOONSOOMAN Exhibition (Hongik University Hongmungwan R104, Seoul/Korea)

  • 2024 Exhibition of Collections : MOONSOOMAN (JGC Gallery, Yongin/Korea)

  • 2024 Connecting the Dots (Gallery Kitanozaka, Kobe/Japan)

  Group

  • 2025 True Luxury with ART by Hyeoneart Gallery (Grand Intercontinental Seoul Parnas Hotel,

    Seoul/Korea)

  • 2023 Petits lutins : CHON BYUNG HYUN, BAEK JIN, MOON SOO MAN (TTE Art Gallery, Seoul/Korea)\

  • 2023 FOCUS LONDON 2023 (Saatchi Gallery, London/UK)

  • 2023 RAUM ART FESTIVAL 2023 (RAUM Art Center, Seoul/Korea)

  • 2023 Galleries Art Fair (COEX Hall B, B-59 Zeinxeno, Seoul/Korea)

  Awards

  • 2020 Salon·Blanc Art Association Chairman Award - 24th Japan·France International Exhibition of Contemporary Art

  • 2014 Gallery Award (Gallery Kitanozaka, 10th Japan-Korea Contemporary Art Companion Exhibition)

  • 2007 Excellence Prize - Environmental Art Competition

  • 1994 Award from the Korean Intellectual Property Office

  • 1993 Minister of Commerce, Industry and Energy Award - Good Design (Industrial Design Packaging Development Institute)

  Collection of Works

  • Korean National Assembly Speaker's Office

  • U.A.E. Korea Embassy

  • Germany STULZ family

  • Ministry of Culture

  • National Museum of Contemporary Art

  • Gyunggi Museum of Modern Art

  • Seoul National University

  • Chungnam National University

  • Kaist

  • Gallery Kitanozaka(Japan)

  • Google US Headquarters(VP)

  • Numerous private collections

  Present Affiliation

  • Korea Art Association

  • Paju Art Bunker Cooperation

• Artist note

  Serenity in Motion

  “The moment I realized that reality cannot be perfectly reflected, I felt not regret, but a mix of vague expectation and anxiety for the future—an awareness that I might move beyond this boundary.

  Anxiety creeps in quietly, and so too does the message of hope. These fluctuations are part of my everyday life, so I endure them calmly. Rejecting the pursuit of showiness, I hold on to the sincerity of my original intention. Looking at my recent works, they are complex—like interlocking machine parts filling the canvas—but within them, 'freedom and order' coexist.

  Change in my work comes naturally as if by word association. After experimenting with many backgrounds for my early butterfly paintings, I moved to images of historical relics. This became the 'simulacre' series, flattening three-dimensional forms like ceramics and bells into two-dimensional images. From this, I developed the 'fractal' series, exploring the textures on the base of Ido tea bowls. Eventually, these works evolved into pieces that arranged rice-grain images in dots, then into the 'Cloud' series—expanding the canvas horizontally and vertically. The rice grain became a motif after I discovered records that rice seeds were excavated together with bronze artifacts. This also led me to contemplate its linguistic character (米) and formal meaning. The workprocess is to leave only the morphemes of rice grains on the canvas—dot after dot—while fusing them with the color of the background. A natural landscape and monochromatic abstraction coexist simultaneously. The canvas becomes a shimmering illusion, though the illusion itself is not the essence of the work. The key is the temporality of endless circulation.

  The title 'Cloud' hints at clouds floating freely in the sky, but also at the shared digital storage space of our era. The rice grain morphemes, arranged in a regular rhythm, even recall text alignment. I mainly use red, blue, and purple—red for passion, blue for hope, purple for calm elegance. More than any color effect, what I carefully aim to capture is 'serenity in motion.' The monochrome background, covering two-thirds of the canvas, becomes stillness; the countless rice grains, standing for the passing moments of sunsets, become motion.

  The two constantly trade places, mirroring life and nature: outwardly calm,yet full of ceaseless motion. This, I believe, is not only the state of my work but my life itself—endlessly preparing, endlessly creating.

  Through the repeated acts of establishing and erasing my presence on the canvas, I realize a sense of humanity and embrace my artistic destiny.”

Work