Collectors Darling Artist Gives Celebrities a Twist

By Seo Dong-shin

Staff Reporter

Kim Dong-yoo's painting of Marilyn Monroe's face is filled with teeny-weeny little images of John F. Kennedy's. Former South Korean President Park Chung-hee's face, meanwhile, is comprised of countless minuscule faces of his archrival, North Korean founding father Kim Il-sung.

This kind of face painting is what catapulted the artist to stardom last year. A piece from his face painting series _ a face of Monroe comprised of miniscule faces of Mao Zedong _ sold for 323 million won at Christies' auction in Hong Kong. The price was almost 25 times higher than what was initially expected for the painting.

It was a clear feat for an artist who graduated from Mokwon University in Daejeon, and worked out of a stall of a studio in Nonsan, South Chungcheong Province, against local art scene dominated by web of connections among graduates of prominent art schools such as Hongik University and Seoul National University or bigwig galleries based in Seoul. His success at the Hong Kong auction, coinciding with the boom in both the domestic and international art markets, is driving the demand for Kim's work. He now works from a new studio; a shut-down school building that is ``located between the rice paddies and strawberry fields.''

``Yes, the orders are piling up and I don't have to worry about earning a living for at least for three to four years,'' the 41-year-old told reporters with a deadpan expression at Savina Museum of Contemporary Art in Insa-dong, Seoul, last Wednesday. The museum will open Kim's solo exhibition titled ``The Face'' on May 30.

While Kim has also worked with images of nature and animals, the exhibition primarily shows his paintings of a variety of famous faces, from artists Vincent van Gogh and Jackson Pollock to politicians and film stars. One of them is even that of a giant marlin from ``The Old Man and the Sea,'' filled with small faces of writer Ernest Hemingway.

At first glance, Kim's paintings remind viewers of pop art icon Andy Warhol's colorful silkscreen prints of celebrities.