The first pictures that humans drew were rock paintings and scribbles. Paintings in which objects are reduced to pared-down images in simplified or abstract line delineation are often referred to as Primitive Art. Although these paintings are dependent on a minimal depiction, they present aspects of people’s lives and dreams. This includes their desires for abundance and fertility, their ambitions to record all of life’s aspects in detail, their yearning to indirectly possess objects through a depiction of similar figures, and their desire for rituals to appease the gods. Primitive Art addresses a range of issues from the scared to profane, from the political and economic to the aesthetic, and from the metaphysical to the physical sciences. In addition, Primitive Art is also a treasure trove holding some of the primary concepts and aspects of contemporary art, such as representation and narrative, Minimalism(minimal form), drawings and scribbles (recalling the line work of the innocent heart of a child), Automatism (a profound representation of the unconscious),and spiritual tendencies. We might as well associate fundamental, original form(the source of all forms) with these primordial, pure images. Kim Hong-tae renders such primordial, original forms with the mind of a child. In his work, the spiritual world of Primitive Art is incorporated into the world of childlike innocence (similar to Naive Art in a sense), transcending time and space. His art also is related to modernist narratives and part of the crucial logic behind contemporary art, especially concerning Abstract Art. In this respect, his work can be seen in the same context as Reductionism in Modernist painting in that it is closer to Abstract Art based on the logic of pure form than to Figurative Art that tries to accurately represent both tangible and intangible objects. This logic, usually known as the Modernist narrative, values the fundamental formal elements of painting such as dot, line, plane, and color, asserting that pure painting is not possible without these essential factors. In terms of pure painting, this logic regards meaning, content, representation, and narrative as impurities that may damage the work itself. In this respect, painting has nothing to do with actual life and has its own self-sufficient structure, principles, and order. Of these formal elements, this logic asserts that the plane or two-dimensionality is the most fundamental, crucial element of painting. Kim Hong-tae embraces, but not completely, such formal logic of Modernist painting (The obvious two-dimensionality in his painting reflects this.). However, raising doubts about the all-encompassing posture inherent in this way of thinking, his work reacts to this strict Modernist logic with drawings that look like primitive or children-like scribbles. 

The artist mainly uses knifes instead of brushes to shape the plain canvas. From time to time, he employs matiere by applying sand to the canvas or generates stripe patterns by using tape. (He applies tape to the canvas, applies paint, and then removes the tape.) The patterns he creates are reminiscent of traditional green, rainbow color strips. He also brings about a harmony between the neutral color areas on the monochrome background that take up most of the canvas, the partially applied primary hues, and other formative elements, lending a sense of rhythm to his canvas. In some work, where the main palette is brown and gray, he applies the paint several times to form multiple layers of paint, evoking a sense of depth. With pointed tools, he scratches the paint and the resulting works recall rock paintings from the prehistoric age. In such paintings, his skillful dexterity, unreserved style of drawing, and bold lines stand out and can be associated with the scribbles of innocent children. Just like a child’s painting that is not dependent on any form, his work emphasizes an extemporaneousness derived from a momentary realization. In his work, all processes seem to be triggered by Automatism, primitivism, and a childlike naive, all of which are closely interwoven like the woof and warp and he uses a wide variety of letter shapes to evoke this primitive quality. Line delineation that can seem meaningless at a glance virtually represents abstracted letters, symbols, and figures. He collects his motives such as houses, cars, modified letter styles, birds, dogs, and other figures from his everyday life. Like this, his work is imbued with the emotions of life and vivid sense of site-specificity. Like a journal or a picture diary, his line delineation assumes the role of a formative factor while simultaneously bearing a symbolic meaning. If interpreting these rampant scratches as a representation of the unconscious (having to do with Automatism), they can appear like some sort of ontological scars.

The artist achieves a picture-in-picture structure by arranging a small painting like a window in his work. Heterogeneous yet organically correlated with one another, each narrative is in contrast and simultaneously harmony with small images at the edge and center of the canvas. This contrast lends dynamic change and tension to his canvas. He also expands this contrasting effect by juxtaposing two contradistinctive pictures, evoking a simple, static atmosphere in one painting and a dynamic, unreserved feeling in another. This juxtaposition of pictures is a representation of painting’s intrinsic principles and its self-sufficient existence, conveying a symbolic meaning in itself. These two heterogeneous canvases suggest two aspects of life, consciousness and unconsciousness, chaos and cosmos, yin and yang, light and shade. In Hanji (traditional Korean paper) painting, Kim applies images to the front and back of the paper, attaining different kinds of textures in the same space. Its impression is distinguished from that of acrylic painting. Contrasting texture and color sensation between transparent and opaque paintings stand out in his work that internalizes Korea’s traditional legacies. For example, he intends to contain the aesthetic sense of ancient people who enjoyed appreciating objects indirectly through the mediums of filtering light like windows or blinds. In Kim’s work, his moderate finish, in which the dexterity and labor of a master can be felt, collides or harmonizes with unexpected solecism in one canvas. Fusing rock-painting style with the idiom of abstract painting, his work recalls primordial, original forms through free-flowing abandoned lines reminiscent of the scribbles of a child.