Location: South Korea (Republic of Korea)
Mason Mansung Kang was born and grown up in the Republic of Korea (South Korea). He retired in 2012 after 35 years of service in the Oil/Gas business. Learning to paint has been his biggest dream since he was young. He was finally able to pursue his passion after retirement by studying at the Graduate School of the Academy of Art University, San Francisco, USA from Feb 2014 until he obtained MFA in Painting in Aug 2016.
He likes scenes of nature with harmonious light and shadows, especially in the sunny weather in California. Because of joining the fine art Study Abroad program to Florence, Italy in 2015, he also gained plenty of experience with plein air painting there as well. His painting, ‘On the Hill’, he won the Best Landscape award in Jun/Jul 2016 of the 6th Annual Plein Air Salon Competition, selected as the ‘Winner Emerging Artist’ of the Artmuse Contest in 2016, and also selected as the Painter for the Online Gallery of the Leisure Painter Magazine in the issue of August 2016. He is now represented by the ‘Gallery 901' in Santa Fe, NM.
He sincerely hopes his works can ultimately present viewers with a sublime sense of warmth, happiness, and contentment.
I feel the awe and wonder of the divine providence to see every corner of this world. I think the world we live in is truly a beautiful place. Every natural entity is different and unique and this diversity makes the world beautiful. The visual changes of the natural world, with unending colors and values that exist in light and shadow over each season and over time, create variations of moods and emotions that always affect my mind. I struggle to observe these subtle colors, but also enhance the colors that are usually not noticed by untrained eyes. To share this beauty is the goal of my efforts. I have just begun to experience this in my own work and want to develop my ability to paint beyond what I simply observe from life. I want to show the exact feelings that I have while I’m on site.
This is the scene I saw on a hill near the beach on my way back to San Francisco from Monterey. It is OC, 30x40 inches painting and I hope all viewers could see the unique windy sunny weather and beautiful poppies in the field of California.
Traveling along the beautiful beach road from Monterey to San Francisco in Spring 2015, I found a small hill by the highway, and walking up it, noticed a pathway lined with poppies and traces of water on the road. Under the sunny and a bit windy weather, the wild bushes had bent in the wind. I wanted to capture the impression straight away and finished the painting a month or so later.
My home country, Korea, is a beautiful country. We have a clear four seasons in a year of which the landscape scenes differ one another and the moods and colors really vary upon the seasons. This is a studio painting from the photo I took myself in winter 2015. It was chilly but calm and peaceful to see the country yard at rest preparing the next season and the small peasants' houses under the remote mountains with their tops were smoothly curved. It shows a small peasants' road leading to their homes from working place. I really liked to smell the scent of my home country and wanted to move it onto the canvas.
I stopped at the bridge, Ponte Vecchio, Firenze, Italy and looked over the Arno river flowing accross the beautiful historical city of Florence. Suddenly, I noticed a beautiful boat carrying the two women with a sunshade umbrella. That scene was totally enraptured me and made me not hesitate a moment to paint it. Based on the plein air painting I did on the spot, I repainted it into this larger canvas again in the studio after that time. The mood and the temperature whipped on me that moment was so clear in my head and I could recall it so lively on the canvas. It was very hot there in summer but I really liked every spot in Firenze, one of the most beautiful cities in the world and will never forget the memories carved in my heart that time in July - Aug 2015.
“Country Field in Winter at Namwon”
This is a rural scene in the morning of Korea based on the photo I took in the winter break in 2015. It was near Namwon and the morning sunlight fell onto the country peasant ground which looked like just awaken from frozen earth was so beautiful and impressed me with the warmth of sunlight giving energy and life to the frozen earth again. I wanted to express the warmth of God's breath onto the ground.
By the stream along the Yosemite, I thought it was not only diamond beautiful but the sun lights twinkling on the water was another real diamonds too that God gives us free.
Monterey beach in the morning looked so beautiful with the distant fog.The foreground greens were also so distinctive to my sight. I would like to remember the scene and the feeling that I had at the site forever.
Recalling the heat on the hill of Fiesole, Italy, It was so beautiful everywhere in the corner.
It was an early morning at my nephew's house in Namwon last winter. A stunning sunrise over the mountains and small villages where some smoking vapors preparing the breakfast were coming up from chimnies of country peasants' houses. It was chilly and I wanted to transfer the feeling what I had in that beautiful moment onto the canvas.
Challenged to describe lights and shadows on a mountaintop in Yosemite, looked at first a bit simple, but never simple at all. It was fun and interesting to know any scene with lights and shadows could be a wonderful subject to paint.
I went to Cuba last September 2016 and visited Havana and Trinidad, the beautiful cities. I painted this from the photo I took when I visited Havana, just in front of such a famous 'Cafe Floridita', where the writer, Ernest Hemingway had visited so often to spend his joyful time meeting friends drinking the famous cocktail, Mojitos. There were so many beautifully colored, luxuriously looked, old classic cars still running with revamped Korean engines as taxicabs throughout the streets of Havana. It was so much impressive to me and made me keep pressing shutters of the camera throughout the short period of my stay in Cuba.
On my driving way from Neuschwanstein, Germany to Vienna, Austria in June 2015, the scenes I noticed around was something different from what I'd seen in my life before. It was so peaceful, calm, and relaxed country scenery everywhere. I just stopped at a point where a wonderful atmospheric perspective attracted my eyes and took several shots of my camera. I wanted but couldn't do en-plein air painting there due to the time constraint. I tried to paint it recalling the peaceful mood and feeling I'd had at the site on t his painting. It looked just a paradise!
On my driving way from Yosemite to LA, I could find a big pine tree, apart from the bottom of which was broken and peeled off for some unknown reason surviving the weather well enough to alive himself on a hill near Paso Robles, California. I admired the vitality of the tree. After I returned, I painted it in the studio from the photo I took that time focusing the tree with a beautiful sunshine scenery typical to California. How can I be a real Impressionist? It's really a long way to go...
Painted a pine tree endured all the weathers long time standing alone by the country road near Paso Robles, California.
Imagining you are in a chilly woods with snow on the hill at the edge of the country field... and the glaring sunlight pours down onto the snow... Still, wander and search for a better way to describe the mood I felt. OC, 24"x36"
OC, 48 x 36 inch. I tried to paint a sky at sunset utilizing the scene when I saw at Bolinas Lagoon on my way back from the trip to Point Reyes & Inverness.
Why don't you dream to stay a night there with any person your love
On my driving way from Yosemite to LA, I could find a big pine tree, apart from the bottom of which was broken and peeled off for some unknown reason surviving the weather well enough to alive himself on a hill near Paso Robles, California. I admired the vitality of the tree. After I returned, I painted it in the studio from the photo I took that time focusing the tree with a beautiful sunshine scenery typical to California. I tried to express that this pine tree endured all the weathers long time standing alone against the sunshine background typical in California.
Late afternoon at the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco... I saw the sunlight so beautiful and it made all things around more beautiful than real beyond words. I wonder how we could see the different colors and could feel differently with time for the scene of the same spot. It's really a Wonder!
This is the Central Park in New York. Renee, Director of Manhattan Arts International, took this picture when she strolled in snowy winter in 2016 and allowed me to paint it. I've been there too several times before but not in winter. But I could imagine how it would be when many people enjoy strolling with their family or lovers on the snow.
One day driving to Sonoma Valley, I found a barn under a big wide tree of which the shadows were drawn upon the roof of it. I felt the warmth of the sunlight poured unto the earth ground. Everything on the ground was so alive with full of energy from the sun.
To my eyes, everything looked dancing. The sun, Shadows, trees, fences, old barns,... etc.
“On the Hill, California”
“Winter Afternoon at Namwon”
“Boating on the Arno”
“Deep Water”
“Foggy Sunlight in Monterey”
“Heat of Fiesole”
“Morning Light at Namwon”
“Mountaintop, Yosemite”
“Obispo Plaza, Havana”
“On the Way to Vienna”
“A Pinetree at Paso Robles”
“Snow on the Hill”
“Sunset in Bolinas Lagoon”
“The Nest”
“The Solitude”
“The Survival”
“Trees at Sunset”
“The Volterra Look”
“One Late Afternoon”
“Renee's Stroll in Winter”
“Sunlight at Sonoma Valley”
“Dancing Shadows”
“Duomo in Firenze”
“Altavis View”
“Over the Blue Gate”
“A Pathway in Venice”
“Cable Car in the Street”
“The Statue, Civic Center”
“Busy City”
“Powell Street”
