The multitalented Korean singer, television personality, contributor, and best-selling author Youngnam Cho will hold an exhibition in New York City, presenting his recent artworks from his 30-year art career.

Gallery Korea is pleased to announce the exhibition Youngnam Cho: Painting New York with the Painted Korean Flag. In this exhibition, Youngnam Cho will present paintings depicting the serenity of Korean landscape and various shapes of the Korean flag. The soil-like brown that lavishly swarms out of his painting resonates with the Korean earth, bringing home memories for Korean-Americans. The hwatu (Korean playing card) motif, which also appears in many of the paintings, contrasts with the Korean flag motif, breaking the artificial boundary of high and low culture.

As a "Hwasu," his own combination of two Korean words of Hwaga (painter) and Kasu (singer), Youngnam Cho has been working with the harmony of music and art for many years. Appearing in concerts and on television, Mr. Cho pursued a hectic singing schedule, while still finding time to hold his first art exhibition in the Korean Gallery in 1973. Since then, he began holding more personal exhibitions in both his native land and abroad in nations such as the United States and Japan. In the year 2003 alone, Mr. Cho held successful exhibitions in eight different venues in Korea.

Youngnam Cho firmly believes that the love and interest of the public help to create his art. He shows this attitude in his most recently published book, Youngnam Cho Meets Art in the Road. In this autobiographical work, he writes about his great ardor for art and how his art is fueled only by the love and interest of the public.

In his introductory essay to the New York exhibition, critic Robert Morgan writes, "(Mr. Cho) is trying to express the coincidence of meeting those to whom you feel close with no particular cultural or genetic reason." The opening reception will create this coincidental closeness with Mr. Cho for gallery visitors, as Mr. Cho performs and presents his artwork in the intimate setting of Gallery Korea.

During the opening reception, Youngnam Cho and a local soprano will give a brief performance of Mr. Cho's most popular pop songs. A free-will collection will be taken up to benefit charities. Expected to last approximately half an hour, this concert will be an opportunity to listen to Mr. Cho's hit pop songs in his soft yet very powerful voice.

Youngnam Cho was born between the years of 1944 and 1945 in Hwanghae Province in Korea (now North Korea). He studied music at the Seoul National University and made his debut in the pop music industry in 1968. He is well-known not only as a singer, but also as an emcee and presenter. He has a degree from Trinity Christian College in Florida and has published numerous books such as A Young Korean Man's Vision of Christ (1981), Mr. Youngnam Cho is a Genius (2002) and most recently Youngnam Cho meets Art in the Road (2003).

Please contact curator Jin Yong Chung for further information: (212) 759-9550 or nyarts@koreanculture.org.