Eddie Kang
Eddie Kang (b. 1980) has considered art as a medium for conveying happiness. He embodies in his picture-planes a so-called ‘Happy Place,’ that is, a world devoid of ill intentions. Through his paintings of ideal happy places, contrasting with the performance and competition-oriented contemporary society and the highly individualistic urban society, Eddie Kang gives comfort to modern people feeling tired. In his works, embodied through unlimited genres including painting, sculpture, and new media, imaginary characters he creates have appeared. These characters remind viewers of pleasant memories from their youth and happy experiences of everyday life such as ‘Happy Cell,’ a character spreads happiness and proliferates unlimitedly, and ‘Loveless,’ a characterized dog the artist has raised; they are elements that communicate happiness. Kang’s work, characterized by thick contour lines, use of primary colors, and narrative images—similar to the properties of comics—is often categorized as a new style called ‘animamix,’ which refers to a combination of animation and comics. Employing the characteristics of the familiar genre known as comics, the artist not only evokes pure childhood emotions but has dreamed up a utopian space into which he invites our exhausted contemporaries to take a rest.