M Gallery, CICA Museum
June 4 – 8, 2025
2025.6.4 – 6.8
Urban Sprawl
A Solo Exhibition by artist Paul James Kearney, Urban Sprawl, is a digital art series exploring the evolving imprint of the urban landscape on Korean society and the broader Korean diaspora. This work examines the intersection of art and technology through cityscapes drawn from Seoul, Busan, Osaka, Los Angeles, New York, and Shanghai — urban centres where Korean identity has taken root and flourished. My connection to Korea is both personal and historical. My granduncle, Fr. Paddy Burke, was a Columban priest stationed in a village near the DMZ from 1948 until the mid-1960s. One morning, he left for a dental appointment in Tokyo, a gesture from friends in the US Army. Just an hour after his departure, the North Korean army crossed the border. The two priests he lived with were captured and killed. His escape was a matter of chance. When he returned to Ireland after seven years, he remarked that he could smell milk and beef on people — a sensory detail that lingered with him, especially when saying Mass. It took half a year before that sensitivity faded. That story — of survival, cultural displacement, and memory — quietly informs this work. The creative process begins with a carefully selected photographic reference — an image with rhythm, structure, and visual intrigue. Using DoodleBuddy and a stylus, I draw directly onto a digital canvas. The drawings are then processed in Photoshop to raise the resolution from 72 to 300 DPI, allowing for large-scale printing without pixelation. Each piece is printed as a unique edition on museum-quality paper. The inks used will retain their vibrancy for over two hundred years and are best preserved using museum-grade glass or by keeping them out of direct light. I’m fascinated by the language of skylines — what towers above the city reveals its priorities: religion, monarchy, finance, or technology. In much of Asia, it’s finance and tech — sometimes both — that define the horizon. With Urban Sprawl, I aim to evoke a futuristic, Blade Runner-esque vision: cities bathed in neon haze, alive with energy, movement, and the complex vibrancy of Korean identity across borders.
Since 2015, I have been creating artworks on an iPad using a stylus and the app DoodleBuddy. My process begins with a carefully selected reference image, which serves as the foundation for each drawing. Though the tools are digital, my approach remains rooted in the traditions of painting, with a strong emphasis on rhythm, balance, composition and colour theory. My academic background includes a BFA in Painting (2014) and an MA in Arts Policy and Practice (2015), where my thesis focused on the Irish Diaspora in Art. My research explored the intersection of culture, identity and medium, culminating in a discussion of Richard Phillips’ video portrait of Lindsay Lohan- a digital artwork which powerfully blends classical composition with contemporary media. In 2015 I attended a pivotal conference in Ipswich titled The Role of Painting in the Digital Age. There I encountered a talk by Matthew Krishanu and was introduced to David Hockney’s iPad paintings. Inspired by these artists, I began experimenting with digital tools myself and have continued to develop this practice ever since. I have since followed the work of Sean Scully, who similarly embraced screen-based media as a starting point for physical artworks. We live in a time of image saturation, constantly exposed to visual content through smartphones and tablets. My work seeks to slow the viewer down-to hold their attention and provoke reflection. In the same way the Industrial Revolution introduced new artistic techniques like impasto and plein air painting, the digital era offers new tools. I embrace these technologies not as gimmicks, but as legitimate extensions of fine art practice. My aim is to push the boundaries of contemporary art while remaining grounded in the formal principles that have guided artists for centuries.
