The Greatest Journey: Channel Swimmer

Korean artist K Blick's first solo exhibition in London. Her paintings portray the physical and mental journey undertaken by English Channel swimmers when they strive to reach the distant shore in France.

Blick is showing two collections of oil paintings. "Channel Swimming" depicts remarkable scenes she observed. In this collection, the artist vividly highlights the uniqueness of each personality that was involved in the great act. "Journey in White" illustrates the inner spiritual experience of the swimmers. She puts the swimmers in a dreamlike world with mystical creatures to represent different mental states, and also their hopes and fears.

Blick closely stood by many channel swimmers, emotionally and physically, as they fought with the ocean. Her husband was one of them. "Once you are in there, you can only succeed or fail," she said. "It is very emotional to witness their extraordinarily strong wills and perseverance. When I watched them reaching this almost zen-like state after swimming in the ocean for over 20 hours, I found it very painful to look at but it was also very beautiful." The artist decided to capture this beauty on her canvases.

One of Blick's most memorable moment was one sunset when she was on the boat accompanying her husband to cross the English Channel. "There was this vast orange sea under this vast orange sky. And there was this one man, swimming, on his own, alone, inside this big world of orange. That was my husband." Blick kept this memory in one of her paintings, 23 Hour, which will be exhibited in this exhibition.