Princess Nammo 南毛公主 113x110cm, color on silk, 2026
Until the 12th, the solo exhibition by painter Ligang, ‘LIGANG PAINTS HORSES’, is continuing at La Mer Gallery (Gallery LAMER) in Insa-dong, Seoul.
Drawing on miniature techniques rooted in Korean (East Asian) painting and adding an illustrative sensibility to the style of traditional folk painting, Ligang combines elements such as women, horses, and weapons to create powerful symbolic images.
Regarding the concept of ‘K-art’, the artist believes it is “not merely about modern form, but a question of how we newly interpret our own images and narratives,” and this flexible, free thinking is as cheerful and vigorous as the horses and warriors that race across the canvas.
This exhibition is less an attempt to restore classics or folk paintings than a new creation that seeks to newly compose on the basis of the classics. The mounted figures and hunting scenes in the works of Ligang may appear to be familiar historical iconography, but in fact they are images recreated on the boundary between historical verification and imagination.
Junjeong 俊貞 - Incarnation of Jealousy 113x110cm, color on silk, 2026
In particular, scenes where mounted figures, hunting falcons, and hounds race together form a single narrative tableau that goes beyond simple depiction.
It is striking that women also appear among the figures; this reads as an attempt to depart from conventional historical representation and to construct a new symbolic order.
From heroines of the Silla era to women clad in Joseon-period armor, images of women on horseback, embodying both strength and softness, overwhelm viewers with confident, flowing power and beauty.
Dazzlingly ornate attire, bold color, and tense movement cloak classical imagery in a sense of fantasy, reorganizing it as distinctive visual content.
Departure from the Palace 出宮圖 75x126cm, color on silk, 2026
In the practice of Ligang, what matters is not ‘representation’ but ‘transformation’. While he consults historical attire and equipment, he does not simply reproduce them. Instead, by intersecting and recombining different eras and elements, he creates new scenes that did not exist in reality. This approach is also the core of what he calls ‘classical fantasy’.
A distinctive choice of color also characterizes this work. The intense palette grounded in the five cardinal colors reveals an unreal beauty that surpasses natural hues, turning the entire picture plane into a decorative and symbolic space.
Through this exhibition, Ligang appears intent on rethinking the tradition of ‘horse painting’, which has been relatively weak in Korean art. Unlike the lineage that has continued more distinctly in China and Japan, in Korea that current has been broken or marginalized.
The Counterattack of Time 26.5x38.5cm, pen sketch, 2026
His work takes this very gap as a point of departure. Built across classic and fantasy, tradition and modernity, his pieces suggest a new possibility for a Korean aesthetic sensibility.
