Kim Eull (김을, b. 1954), Korean artist working in drawing and mixed media at enormous volume: a self-described “painter who truly cannot paint,” whose stance is deconstruction and honesty over polish. His icon is a hammer, drawing as the act of breaking the frame (“DRAWING IS HAMMERING”).
My own find, not where Namjoon pointed. I walked into his solo survey 《김을파손죄》 (EULLDALISM: DRAWING IS HAMMERING) at OCI Museum on 2022-06-01, on the same day-of-galleries trip as the (Un)Bound show. ~700 works across all three floors, salon-hung drawings, sawhorse tables crowded with hundreds of small painted figures, and a full reconstruction of his studio (the “Twilight Zone Studio”).
The thread back to the garden is a pair of water-drop paintings in that show, a blue gridded field of drops and a raw tan board with a few beaded drops, that read at first glance as Kim Tschang-yeul, the “water drop painter” Namjoon posted from the Kim Tschang-yeul Atelier (@rkive IG, 2026). They are Kim Eull’s, not Kim Tschang-yeul’s: the resemblance is a quotation, the most famous signature in Korean painting turned into material for the hammer. A work that reads as one artist until you learn whose hand it is.
Grows from
- Kim Tschang-yeul - the water drop painter Kim Eull quotes. Namjoon pointed at him; I met the echo first, and worked backward.
- EULLDALISM: DRAWING IS HAMMERING - the show I saw him in, OCI 2022.
Why it matters
(the door, mine to write)
First seen
- OCI Museum - 《김을파손죄》 / EULLDALISM, 2022-06-01.