Acclaimed artist Kim Jung Gi dies of a heart attack at age 47

Famend illustrator Kim Jung Gi died Monday in Paris at age 47 after struggling a coronary heart assault, the Daniel Maghen artwork gallery introduced Wednesday.

Based on an announcement shared on Kim’s Instagram web page, the South Korean artist had simply accomplished his ultimate engagement in Europe and was about to board a aircraft to New York, the place he was scheduled to look at Comedian Con this week. After experiencing chest pains on the airport, Kim was taken for surgical procedure to a close-by hospital, the place he died.

“After having accomplished a lot for us, now you can put down your brushes,” wrote his collaborator, Hyun Jin Kim.

Kim was identified for his distinctive potential to attract intricate illustrations totally from reminiscence, with no references in anyway, on giant canvases together with his trusty brush pen. The proficient craftsman — who additionally contributed art work to graphic novels, in addition to Marvel and DC comics — held the Guinness World Document for longest drawing by a person.

“His sudden disappearance contrasts with the immense happiness he introduced us,” learn an announcement from the Maghen gallery in Paris, the place an exhibition of Kim’s work is on show.

“We’re speechless. Daniel Maghen, the whole gallery workforce, and significantly Olivier Souillé, who had accompanied him for ten years, are terribly affected by his loss. All our ideas are turned to his household, his spouse and his two kids, his pals, his collaborators Kim Hyun Jin, Boin Lee, Jean-Christophe Caurette… and his followers, for whom his disappearance will depart an incredible void.”

On the request of Kim’s household, the his exhibition on the Maghen gallery will proceed within the artist’s reminiscence till Saturday.

Born in 1975 within the South Korean city of Goyang-si, Kim started sketching at an early age earlier than finding out artwork and design at Dong-Eui College in Busan, in accordance with his artist bio. After attending faculty, Kim was required to serve two years within the South Korean military, the place he pretended to attract poorly to keep away from getting requested to sketch portraits of individuals’s family members.

“They didn’t actually ask me too many favors,” Kim stated in a 2018 interview with Proko.

“I don’t even draw my family, so why ought to I’ve to attract another person’s? There was one other artwork pupil that joined just a few months after me who ended up shouldering an entire lot of this burden. And when he later came upon that I used to be truly excellent at drawing, he received a little bit irritated.”

Whereas serving within the military, Kim memorized the construction of assorted weapons and autos, corresponding to army plane, and commenced to attract them in his thoughts.

“In fact, it was a little bit scary, however my pursuits overrode any concern,” he informed Proko. “I might keenly observe the gears and the weapons and attempt to contact them and really feel them if I might.”

Early in his inventive profession, Kim typically drew erotic illustrations with graphic depictions of intercourse and nudity, for which he was generally criticized. Some have been so specific that he couldn’t embody them in his official sketchbooks, which offered for greater than $100 apiece.

“I’ve been informed that my drawings are misogynistic, and I’ve had folks ask me why I draw genitalia,” he informed Proko. “Nicely, I draw them as a result of they’re there.

“I nonetheless have a whole lot of naughty ideas inside me. I simply have extra folks round me that preserve me below management. … They inform me cease drawing stuff like that. I used to attract no matter I needed again once I wasn’t well-known … However since I now have a fame to maintain, I’ve limitations. That makes me a little bit unhappy.”

Over time, Kim’s sprawling, imaginative drawings have depicted all types of issues: folks, lions, tigers, legendary creatures, superheroes, cityscapes, battles and past. Along with promoting his sketch collections, collaborating with comedian e book publishers, instructing on-line artwork programs and displaying his work at galleries and occasions, Kim additionally entertained the lots in actual time throughout his dwell drawing periods.

Whereas sketching elaborate portraits earlier than an viewers — generally over the course of a number of hours — the cartoonist would crack jokes and provide perception into his inventive course of. As soon as his performances attracted a big following, he held dwell drawing periods in France, america and throughout Asia.

On Wednesday, DC Comics Writer Jim Lee hailed Kim by way of Twitter as “one [of] absolutely the greats,” whereas Marvel Comics editor C.B. Cebulski stated he was “nonetheless sitting right here shocked” after studying of the artist’s dying.

Kim “was a very phenomenal expertise whose pen and brush wizardry captivated and impressed thousands and thousands of followers world wide,” Lee tweeted. “Whereas he drew some unbelievable comics, it was his dwell drawing & his sketchbooks about his life, travels and desires which spoke to me most. It was downright eerie and spellbinding to see somebody with a close to photographic reminiscence deliver an illustration to life with the type and aptitude that solely Jung Gi might ship.”

“There was nobody fairly like him,” Cebulski wrote. “Relaxation in peace.”

As of this yr, Kim had printed six sketchbooks that quantity to roughly 4,500 pages price of drawings spanning greater than a decade. He additionally illustrated the Seung-Jin Park comic-book sequence “Tiger the Lengthy Tail,” in addition to the Bernard Werber novels “The Paradise” and “Third Humanity.”

Drawing is “as pure for me as respiration,” Kim informed Proko in 2018.

“I’m not even enthusiastic about what I’m drawing more often than not. If I can’t consider something to attract, I simply draw an individual first and preserve including to it. … I nonetheless discover drawing enjoyable, and I hope that I gained’t lose that sense of pleasure for a very long time.”