Client: CLASH
Song Minho, the 29 year old otherwise known as MINO of K-pop group WINNER, is standing on the steps of the Saatchi Gallery on a rather nondescript London morning. Autumn leaves fall silently from nearby trees as a cluster of press and fans take his photo, one of the latter wielding the trademark hardcore stan lens, which is intimidatingly telescopic. It’s, for once, unnecessary, he’s close enough to reach out and touch: Song Minho isn’t here as the rapper and songwriter he rose to fame as but as OHNIM, the award-winning South Korean painter and multimedia artist whose first showing was a mere three years ago.
The StART art fair, now in its ninth year, will be OHNIM’s 11th exhibition and his second appearance at the fair and third at Saatchi. He’s brought nine pieces over from Seoul, paintings that create a bridge from earlier work – in which features like eyes and hands were exaggerated through size and colour, and bodies distorted into cramped, protective positions – yet seek and explore new horizons through hot pinks and dense yellows that saturate large depictions of giraffes.
Taylor Glasby 