MinJung Kim
The work of Kim Minjung (Korea) demonstrates both her foundation in the traditional Korean calligraphic arts and the influence of mid-20th Century abstract expressionism.
Kim attained her MFA and PhD at Seoul National University. Through her studies she discovered that both traditional calligraphers and the action painters of the mid-20th Century shared an appreciation for the ability to convey energy and spirit through the manipulation of line and practiced spontaneity.
Much of her subsequent work exhibits this poetry of line and explores the expressive potential of pure material. The tone of her work is often at once contemplative and whimsical, ethereal and scientific. It moves onlookers to consider man’s place in nature and our relationships to each other. Her compositions variably recall the awesome grandeur of traditional landscape or the blurred geometry of chromosomes under a microscope, but always Kim guides onlookers to focus on marks and material rather than representation. For Kim, meaning derives from process. In order to convey the passage of time and organic decay, she has perfected a method of layering rice paper and tearing the edges to create line, paradoxically utilizing a method destruction in order to create contours which envelop form. She is hesitant to label her work as art -- rather she describes her practice as a “discipline of life,” a meditative process which simultaneously requires her to focus her energy and to clear her mind.
Kim attained her MFA and PhD at Seoul National University. Through her studies she discovered that both traditional calligraphers and the action painters of the mid-20th Century shared an appreciation for the ability to convey energy and spirit through the manipulation of line and practiced spontaneity.
Much of her subsequent work exhibits this poetry of line and explores the expressive potential of pure material. The tone of her work is often at once contemplative and whimsical, ethereal and scientific. It moves onlookers to consider man’s place in nature and our relationships to each other. Her compositions variably recall the awesome grandeur of traditional landscape or the blurred geometry of chromosomes under a microscope, but always Kim guides onlookers to focus on marks and material rather than representation. For Kim, meaning derives from process. In order to convey the passage of time and organic decay, she has perfected a method of layering rice paper and tearing the edges to create line, paradoxically utilizing a method destruction in order to create contours which envelop form. She is hesitant to label her work as art -- rather she describes her practice as a “discipline of life,” a meditative process which simultaneously requires her to focus her energy and to clear her mind.
