HEENA KIM
PART I :
7-27 JANUARY 2010 | Opening Reception: Thursday 7th JANUARY 6-8pm
ARTIST STATEMENT:
I stimulate my imagination and make characters which are part human, part creature. I look to the human body, everyday scenes and space. In particular, I dismantle the human body and join it with parts of non-humans such as insects and animals. ‘Pink Human’, which are human bodies joined with other creatures, do not look like an organic human which can live in the world. Fragmented body, ‘Pink Human’, shows itself in dreams when the analytic movement confronts a certain level of aggressive collapse in the individual. It then emerges in the form of disjointed limbs, or of those organs growing wings and taking up arms for physical abuse, like Hieronymus Bosch’s painting climbing to the imaginary peak of the human being. This form tangles the lines of fragility which defines the anatomy of fantasy.
‘Pink Human’ exists in a space separated from the real world and can be free and safe in the space looking like human internal organs. Often, I represent closed and independent space on my artworks to put my images. This independent space reflects steps of recollection that go back to the childhood when I was likely to make a boundary between myself and others in order to exist in my own world, which was ‘my fantasyland’.
Memory operates to push me into an unusual world unlike the state in which I am living, but there is no doubt that the memory has important moments of my experiences in the past because I remember the moment, either it’s short or long, even though it happened a long time ago. Generally, memory is built up by intense shocks or emotions and sometimes linked with present occasions, and the form of memory is distorted and out of facts, but the transformed memories brings about unbelievable effects in the present. In my case, this connection works in my work to create ‘Pink Human’ and to make stories with.
Basically, I make stories with Pink Human transformed. For instance, the human bodies are caught by a spider’s web and insects or animals infiltrate into the human body. Nails penetrate into the weird-formed human body dismantled or transformed and arms and limbs are cut off. These brutal scenes resemble the violence of our real life. Therefore, my stories can be read as the acknowledgement and manifestation of the fact that there are jealous, hatred, detestable and violent emotions in our mind. This represents my self-conscious broken by incomplete and unimpaired mirror images and reflects manifold subjects or spirit which inscribes trauma and are excluded by others as abnormal. Therefore, I call the story in my work ‘Pure voice of the inner life’. Pure voice of the inner life which revives the excluded and renounced, correspond to the realization of the shadow excluded by the past experience overlapped with the present.
Untitled | Acrylic and collage on canvas | 2009
Dear M. C. Escher | Acrylic and collage on canvas | 122x122cm | 2009
HEENA KIM
Lives and works in London, UK
EDUCATION
MA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins of Art and Design, London, UK 2007-2008
MFA Painting, Hongik University Graduate School, Seoul 2003- 2005
BA Painting, Hongik University, Seoul 1999 - 2002
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2004 The Weirdest Place, Samsung Raemian Cultural Centre, Seoul
GROUP SHOWS
2009 Platform, DegreeArt.com, London
--------The Tomorrow People, Elevator Gallery, London
--------ArtWorksOpen, Artworks Project Space, Barbican Arts Group Trust, London
--------Inside Out, The Fire Station Gallery, Windsor
--------Overview, Elysium Artspace, Swansea, Wales
2008 Entry Forms, Korean Cultural Centre, London
--------MA Degree Show, Central Saint Martins of art, London
--------System & Patterns 2, Whitechapel Gallery, London
--------System & Patterns 2, Westboune Studio, London
--------CSM Interim Show, Barge House, London
--------Wimbledon Studio Summer Open Show, Wimbledon Studio, London
--------The exhibition of 3 invited artists, Hana Art Gallery, Seoul
--------Party, Chung Gallery, Seoul
--------MFA Degree Exhibition, Hongik Museum of Contemporary Art. Seoul
2004 Gap and Space, Mokkumto Gallery, Seoul
--------Make Your Own Show, Mokkumto Gallery, Seoul
--------The 8th Na, Hye-seck Grand Art Festival for the Woman Artist, Gyunggi-do Cultural Art Centre, Suwon
--------TEAM_PREVIEW INC., Insa Art Plaza Gallery, Seoul
--------Danwon Arts Competition, Danwon Pavilion, Ansan
--------A thunderbolt, Hongik Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul
--------The 7th Na, Hye-seck Grand Art Festival for the Woman Artist, Gyunggi Do Cultural Art Centre, Suwon
--------The 33rd University’s of Korea Art and Design Exhibition, Chungju University’s Central Library, Chungju