We, at Gahoedong60, are hosting an engraving exhibition of the young French artist, Baptiste Fompeyrine.

Having worked as an artist in France from 2007, though still a student of Paris Beaux Arts, he is expressing his previous experiences and the unconscious world behind it through his works.

Feeling a limit with creating images through working with photographs, he uses painting to express his inner world. To him, engraving is just another way of drawing, with the replicability of working with engravings being a way to overcome the limits of originality of painting.

There is strange allure in his work. They own a style that reminds of Classicism, but are never boring, probably due to his very own interpretations gained from his unconsciousness, not gainable in real life. He is expressing a unique world of works, getting his motifs with what he had wanted to highlight through every day life, or poems, novels, music and dreams. “NOCTURNES,” the theme of this exhibition, is not only the gentle rise of his world from complete darkness, but also a chance by which to weigh his potentials.

There could be some regret over the fact that the works this exhibition are not paintings, but it should also be considered that, the engravings being like his own diary, expressing wholly his everyday life, they are much easier to approach. Fompeyrine is returning to his homeland on February, after the short six-month visit to Korea. Have a chance to look over his potentials over this exhibition, consisting of etchings, lithographs and drypoints.

By Jungmin Kim, Director of Gallery Gahoedong60