What is the axis to support artistic world of  Hong-Tae Kim? Through his works we can feel freedom, unorganized activities, and the homesick of something original. Maybe, Human beings in the beginning of the world was liberal beings. However, in any sense, the development of culture could limit freedom of men and put pressure on them. We cannot judge that the civilization of human beings has positively developed passing through stages from the ancient time to middle ages, from middle ages to the modern age, and from modern age to the present day. What is the exit in the field of natural destruction, environmental pollution, and human alienation? We cannot help asking again the root of our beings. In anytime, art has realized value of human beings, reflecting the spirit of the age(Zeitgeist). The consistent theme of Hong-Tae Kim is the exploration of primitiveness, which is represented in the child's mind. What does "child's mind" mean for him? What's the relationship between child's mind and primitiveness? In the past, William Words worth(1770-1850), poet laureate who sang human beings and nature along with deep faith of them, sang "My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky...........

The child’s father of the man.  Child's mind has the primitive tendency and inclination, and makes us go back to the root. Child's mind and primitiveness are encountered in the simplicity and innocence. All meaning is condensed in the simplicity and has strong symbolic character. It doesn't have decoration, hypocrisy, and it only has the strong life force. In the early period, Hong-Tae Kim expressed his sentiment towards nature through watercolor painting cleanly and comfortably. During this process, he seemed to have question in regard to the fundamental sentiment. Just as there is a distant view behind the near view, he scratched added parts on picture from the bottom and removed them in order to uncover the buried figure on the foundation. He gives a sense of tension and draw dynamics through the appropriate division of surface and comparison. In addition, he shows us the brink of root through giving a hint of symbolic sign or signal. Occasionally, he reveals hidden figure, which is situated at the base of our consciousness through restrained expression and space organization.

The fundamental thing that he pursued for is the harmony of yin and yang principles, buried on the bottom of our sentiment. The sun and the moon don't have an antipathy to each other, rather they are elements for sharing. The principle of connecting and sharing five colors characteristic in our culture is the harmony of the son and the moon. In the western painting, various elements are in conflict and opposition, but for us, they give us vitality in harmonization and non-division. In addition, our beauty is contemplative and static because it appears through line. Even though line is not dynamic but it is static, it is vital because of its primitiveness. 

That is, the origin of vitality and life is primitiveness. The primitive figure, carved in the image of mind, is composed of unintentional line, but not intentional. Essentially, the art of prehistoric age is the art of line, and art of contour. Let's see the case of CY Twombly(1929-), who uses line as the basic element of work formation. He fills paper with figure, numeral, sign, etc. by using crayon, pencil, and ink, and through it, he expresses the sentiment of contemplation or meditation. That is, on canvas, in keeping with scratched scars, fact, happening, purpose, surprise, etc. in life are well expressed. However, the primitiveness and originality in cave mural, induced by Hong-Tae Kim reveals dynamics and life force through strong light, formed naturally for a long time. The dynamic life force is the most basic impulse, possessed by men. Human beings who are not eternal, pursue for infiniteness, and are basically born with having religious inclination. It is also adjusted to the present time, when we live. 

Therefore, we have the expression of primitive life force, incantation-image, abstraction and symbolism. We draw buried things in our unconsciousness and make figuration. The partly irregular and unharmonious figuration creates harmony on the whole and shows dynamics. For Hong-Tae Kim, Child's mind and primitiveness appear as one and the same according to the automatic hand using. However, it seems to derive from highly refined professional mind and long period of practice. Automatism was introduced by Surrealism which tried to explore the world of unconsciousness through irrational recognition. In other words, it is the unconscious technique, freely written, out of reason and conscious control. So, illusionary figurations, buried in the surrealistic unconsciousness are discovered. We can see the similarity of primitive art and surrealism under the automatic descriptive arousing. 

Hong-Tae Kim establishes order from chaos, associating primitiveness in African Sculpture, and mural image with drawing. In terms of technique, sometimes, he draws natural feeling of tactile impression by using sand and in other times, he aims at various effects through mixed materials. He sees primitiveness from child's mind. In addition, his consistent professional mind as artist towards topic, formed by figuration of child's mind, is connected to our time and contains valued, pursued for by us.