Where Light Lingers Presents New Paintings of Sorrento, Central Park and Key West

Korean painter Kim Dukki is presenting the solo exhibition Where Light Lingers at Rho Gallery in Jongno District, Seoul. The exhibition runs through September 10.

The show marks Kim’s first solo exhibition at the gallery since 2016. It brings together landscapes based on the light, atmosphere and memories he encountered while traveling.

Kim’s earlier works focused primarily on families and domestic spaces. In recent years, he has expanded his subjects to include people and natural settings encountered abroad. Rather than reproducing each location directly, he rearranges observed scenes according to memory and emotion.

“Sorrento, A Day Under the Orange Trees,” completed in 2026, depicts the southern Italian coastal town. Kim uses an orange sky and yellow fields to represent the heat and light of the Mediterranean.

“Holiday in Central Park—People by the Boat Pond” shows visitors resting in New York’s Central Park and trees reflected in the water. In “Key West, Tranquility Beyond the Horizon,” layered dots and brushstrokes form the movement of the sea.

Kim begins by dividing the canvas into areas of color. He then applies dots in different hues and densities to create spatial depth. The speed and direction of his brushwork change according to the movement of wind, trees and water represented in each scene.

The artist described the process of layering individual dots as a way of revisiting memories from his travels. He uses small marks that accumulate into a landscape to represent moments and relationships from everyday life.

Families, couples, tourists and solitary figures appear throughout the paintings. Kim said human figures remain an essential part of his landscapes because natural settings without people lack a sense of human presence.

Born in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province, in 1969, Kim studied traditional Korean painting at Seoul National University. He worked as an art teacher in Seoul before moving his studio to his hometown and becoming a full-time artist in 2008.

Although Kim works primarily with acrylic paint on canvas, he applies techniques associated with East Asian painting. He uses round and fine brushes for detailed lines and organizes some landscapes into foreground, middle ground and background sections drawn from traditional landscape compositions.

The exhibition also includes “Golden Waves,” based on rice fields near Kim’s studio in Yeoju. The painting places farmers, a scarecrow, children and dogs within a field constructed from layers of yellow and gold marks.

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Maria Kim sayart2022@gmail.com