2021. 10. 6 – 11. 1
Kim Myoung-Jin

Galerie GAIA is very pleased to invite you to a solo exhibition presented by Kim Myoung-Jin in this beautiful season.

Kim Myoung-Jin’s works which show the vividness of the painting itself, have received fantastic reviews from international art fairs in Miami, Hong Kong, Singapore, New York, London, and other major cities, and also have maintained high reputations from critics both domestic and abroad. He was selected as ’50-Must see artists’ in 2016 Miami art week by ‘Artsy.net’, the leading art resource. He was also chosen as one of outstanding artists in both 2016 & 2017 by Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. In January through March 2018 his works were exhibited at the Art Lounge of the Trade Tower in Trade Center, Seoul.

His drawings are very unique. They are fantastic, bizarre, and provocative. And yet, they fill the screen with unusual energy and excitement, and they boldly show the cheerful spirit of the raw image itself. He expressed the characteristics of the substance of the paint itself; at the same time, painted and smudged traces that vibrate trying to escape as images, shapes, letters, and numbers carefully drawn, a line broken into little pieces, dots and touches are all combined to make no bones about spitting out his inner feelings swaying with inspiration. All sorts of traces floating on the screen with velocity are busy in between the impulses to create certain narration. His free drawings of raw shows something different from what we see on other paintings that are limited by certain stereotypes and standards.

He narrates his own stories overpassing the boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness through the series of ‘Edgewalker’. He is gazing at the riot inside as he is walking on the edge of enormous space. At the moment it is captured by the artist, objects are sucked into an unexpected space. In the scene, stories, the artist encountered in his life, are scattered like debris from explosion in the chaotic space to construct a space of fragmental narration not the perspective space. To imagine how fast the artist is rotating at the edge of the scene would be one of the joys of admiring the painting. This operation of very personal and simultaneously universal would be the meaning of Kim’s paintings.

We would greatly appreciate it if you could visit the exhibition and hope you have a wonderful day.

Myoung-Jin Kim: Paintings of the raw

Park, Young-Taek (Professor of Kyunggi University, Art Critic)

There is a new trend going on among Korean Painters. They are into drawing. It’s not just mere drawing, but they are drawing with determination. They immersed themselves into obsessive drawing with astonishing concentration, transcending time. We are in abundance of paintings with which we can be satisfied with just for the act of drawing itself. They are the paintings that drive them to the cruelty, paintings that are like the divine punishment, and the paintings without specific goals or purposes but permit the present moment to continue. I would humbly say that it is a desire to overindulge the time of present moment, and at the same time, it is an aspiration for the fascination of paintings against the era of image chaos. Also, our loneliness and anxiety is deeply engraved into them. They are the paintings full of countless thoughts that are exuberant in one’s lonely daily life, mixed icons surfaced by going back and forth between conscious and unconscious state, imagination and fantasy, and bizarreness. When it’s not easy to find a way out to communicate or a connecting link for the society or reality, the act of drawing flourishes in the autistic circuit.
Paradoxically, concentrating on the obsessive drawing could be the silent resistance to speak out that ‘I am still alive and drawing something here.’ On the other hand, paintings are analogs. Paintings are of texture and sense of touch, different from immaterial images shown by pictures, and they are drawings of thoughts and responses expressed with our bodies. Therefore, paintings are physical documentation of this world. They are the living evidences and records of our bodies refusing to belong to the society and system. They are unique expressions of individuals. Drawing is one of a few ‘excellent passages’ to express about the world with human body. Isn’t art almost the only medium to escape?
In the midst of the painting is the drawing. Drawing quickly catches the hand movements, emotions, and feelings. It evaporates imagination fast. The imagination is ‘the ability to create image (Bachelard)’. Drawing is painting and writing, using the whole body with limited material. It is also an ability to free us from the basic images, and alter them. In the paintings of Kim, Myoung-Jin, the boundaries between drawing, graffiti, and illustration are dismantled. They are just full of the traces of ‘the drawing’.

His drawings are very unique. They are fantastic, bizarre, and provocative. And yet, they fill the screen with unusual energy and excitement, and they boldly show the cheerful spirit of the raw image itself. They seem to be created by intuition. In fact, art is the product of intuition. Art can’t be accomplished by training. His screen, with many little strokes of the brush, numberless symbols, shapes, letters and numbers, arouses the dark and damp feelings inside us. This painting was done by a voluntary and impulsive method, apart from the methods used by other artists. It is a painting of quite unlearned and unconstitutional. The figurative composition or strength may need a little improvement, but it’s free, interesting, and it has power to draw the audience. It is also a process to build a kingdom of his own symbols by symbolizing his inner thoughts and by combining and arranging all the logos and symbols of the world with graffiti or drawing that are naturally exuded from his body and soul. They are visional language and voice different from the characters or languages currently being in use. It reflects his desire for a new language different from existing communication system. He is rebelling against all conventional symbols and languages. He is trying to erase them all and trying to create different codes.
He expressed the characteristics of the substance of the paint itself; at the same time, painted and smudged traces that vibrate trying to escape as images, shapes, letters, and numbers carefully drawn, a line broken into little pieces, dots and touches are all combined to make no bones about spitting out his inner feelings swaying with inspiration. The remains of the traces that swept the screen fast and diligently hint what the artist thought and did in front of the screen. You can feel the artist’s emotions as if you were there. The strokes and traces filling the screen seem to be a gigantic shadow of Kim, Myoung-Jin occupying his consciousness of his existence and his subconscious emotions. The screen is filled with consolidation of face severed from the body, mouth pouring out something, shapes of animals, circles and dots, scribbled lines, symbols flying around, and genitals floating around.

 I assume the genitals appearing repeatedly are by the repetition compulsion. A continuous repetition of unpleasant experience is called ‘repetition compulsion’. It is a result of a shock or wound in one’s mind from strong agitation too harsh for one’s consciousness to endure. On the other hand, they can be considered as the dormant sexual urge, or sexual desire. The artist projected the impulse of the fundamental power that initiates the variety of human actions repeatedly.
All sorts of traces floating on the screen with velocity are busy in between the impulses to create certain narration. Perhaps, it is an act to excrete and pour out what has been piling up inside the artist in his subconscious state, rather than it is controlled by consciousness. Therefore, this painting is closer to graffiti. It is similar to children’s basic drawings. It is a warm painting filled with fundamental and basic energy of drawing. It is painted by the smudged train of thoughts and expressed with shapes and symbols. There are repeated appearances of same shapes and symbols, and the strokes of a brush are moving around the surface to shake off his thoughts. According to Freud, the subconscious is something that doesn’t surface to our consciousness even though it is clearly acting and influencing in our psychological reality. Subconscious is not a dream but it is a momentum to realize that dream. Subconscious is a territory in our mind that doesn’t show on the outside for some reason, even though it exists in our mind.

As we all know, we develop subconscious when there is prohibition and suppression. The paintings of Kim, Myoung-Jin are closer to visual surfacing of subconscious rather than unconsciousness. Compared to the unconsciousness that does not acknowledge our consciousness, subconscious is something that comes out to our consciousness even though it is suppressed under our real consciousness. The subconscious is our forgotten consciousness. I think painting for Kim, Myoung-Jin is a process to express his subconscious. He enjoys it and gladly puts it in action. As if someone speaks in tongues, he tries to visualize everything that’s inside and effuses them. Therefore, I see his paintings as emission or ejaculation. He doesn’t hesitate in front of the canvas, but he goes straight ahead to draw. He doesn’t draw the rough sketches; instead, he just emits all his thoughts and emotions. He only tries to express his own stories. I like that of him. His free drawings of raw shows something different from what we see on other paintings that are limited by certain stereotypes and standards. We have forgotten the paintings with a room, the fundamental drawing.

Galerie GAIA
110-300, 57-1, Insadong-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Korea
+82 2 733 3373

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