About
VADIM MOON / Moon Daehwan / 문대환
Vadim Moon / Moon Daehwan / 문대환 was born in Seoul in 2009.
He began drawing as a child. Between 2015 and 2018 the notebooks filled with objects, rooms and buildings, and the interest in form — how a line divides a sheet, how a shape holds weight — became the core of his practice. He studied in art studios and continues to experiment on his own with charcoal, ink and acrylic. The French-speaking international school environment in Seoul shaped his view of images and his interest in architecture.
In 2025 his first solo exhibition took place in Seoul.
Timeline
2009
Seoul, South Korea · 문대환
Vadim Moon — 문대환 — was born in Seoul in 2009. A city of contrasts: old alleys next to glass towers, mountains at the end of the street, the constant noise of a metropolis and sudden silence inside a room. This was his first visual environment — and the first material for looking.
2015–2018
Notebooks, sketches, first lessons
The notebooks fill up: objects, rooms, buildings, the courtyard seen from the window. Drawing becomes a daily habit rather than an occupation. What interests him is not the story but the form — how a line divides the sheet, how a shape holds weight, how a building stands in space. First lessons, first attempts to work with tone instead of outline.
Studios, teachers, techniques
Art studios, teachers, techniques: charcoal, ink, acrylic. Alongside the lessons — independent experiments in which the rules learned in class are tested and broken. Tone replaces outline; the surface starts to matter as much as the image on it.
International school, Seoul
Vadim grows up between languages and cultures. The French-speaking international school environment in Seoul gives him a second optic: an interest in architecture, in the history of images, in how differently the same form can be read in different cultures. Not a school portfolio — only what shaped him as an artist.
Series title
The first series: a group of works built around one form and one question rather than a single image. Working in series changes the rhythm of the studio — decisions are made not for one canvas but for the space between them.
Artist statement
I am interested in what remains after the image disappears. Not the subject, not the story — the sensation that stays in the room when the painting has already been seen.
For the eye, form comes before emotion; for me, emotion comes first. I look for a shape that can carry it without explaining it. Space in my work is not a background. It is a participant: it presses on the figure, holds it, sometimes swallows it.
Colour is rare and therefore an event. Most of the surface stays close to black, grey and dirty white; when colour appears, it has to be necessary. The material — canvas, charcoal, layers of acrylic, scratches — keeps the memory of how the work was made. I do not hide it.
Painting, for me, is a way of thinking in silence.