hayoung kim | eat all you can

1 / Hoxton Art Gallery

HOXTON ART GALLERY

64 Charlotte RoadLondonEC2A 3PE

T +44 (0)2077396852E [email protected]

HAYOUNG KIM - EAT ALL YOU CAN

31st August - 4th October 2012

CURATED BY DIRECTOR OF THE JERWOOD FOUNDATION LARA WARDLE


31st August - 4th October 2012

CURATED BY LARA WARDLE, DIRECTOR OF THE JERWOOD FOUNDATION

HAYOUNG KIM - EAT ALL YOU CAN

Hoxton Art Gallery are pleased to announce HaYoung Kim’s first solo exhibition in east Lon-

don, curated by Director of the Jerwood Foundation Lara Wardle.

Kim is a South Korean artist who graduated from the Royal Academy in 2011 and has already

reached critical acclaim in London and internationally winning the major prize with Jerwood

in 2010, the Soloman J Soloman Prize and the Vytlacil AIR residency in New York, 2011.

Kim is renowned for her colourful depictions of manga inspired characters and landscapes,

painting onto unusual surfaces such as drafting film and polyester. In her practice the art-

ist focusses on the ways human beings consume and relate with technology; her recent work

exploring the physiological relationship between individuals and the digital realm. In her solo

exhibition Kim has included a series of ‘dish paintings’ which feature meals of organic mat-

ter merging with the technological. Offering confused jumbles of flesh, food and emoticons

on each of the plates Kim presents us with a glimpse of what our daily physical and virtual

ingestion may look like.

Curator Lara Wardle joined the Jerwood Foundation in January 2010, having previously

worked as a specialist in 20th Century British Art and Associate Director at Christie’s.

Alongside wider responsibilities as Director of the Jerwood Foundation, Lara is solely re-

sponsible for the Jerwood Collection of 20th and 21st century art, which is on public view at

the new Jerwood Gallery in Hastings. Lara also sits on the Jerwood Gallery Board of Direc-

tors.


HAYOUNG KIM

‘Like the work of Japanese Pop artists such as Takashi Muraka-

mi and Yoshitomo Nara, Kim’s pieces take inspiration from man-

ga comic books and animations. But the characters and land-

scapes of these cartoon sources are warped almost beyond

recognition in her latest acrylics, which are applied to unusu-

al surfaces such as film and polyester. Highly colourful, strange

organic shapes predominate, swirling in vortexes or other

free-form patterns, or sometimes ground together in some un-

mentionable ectoplasm-like mush. The title of the show ‘Eat All

You Can’ conveys something of the superabundance on offer.’

- Sam Phillips, London-based art critic


HAYOUNG KIM

b. 1983, South Korea Lives and works in London

EDUCATION

2010 Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art, Royal Academy2007 BFA Painting, Hongik University, Seoul, Korea

AWARDS & RESIDENCIES

2011 The Dunover de Segonzac Award Vytlacil AIR program in New York2010 Glenfiddich artists in residence Jerwood Prize, Royal Academy Schools, Major Prize Soloman J Soloman2009 The Arts Club Prize Excellence in Drawing Award (1st)

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2012 Eat All You Can, Hoxton Art Gallery, London (Upcoming: 31st Aug – 27th Sep)2011 Solo Show, 43 Inverness Street Gallery, London

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2012 The Pleasure Principle, Hoxton Art Gallery, London ID Please, An exhibition of contemporary Korean art with the Alpha Art Association, London Map The Korea, The 5th 4482 Exhibition, London2011 Winter Exhibition, Hoxton Art Gallery, London ‘Painting?’, Hoxton Art Gallery, London Tomorrow 2011, Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul Art Centre, Korea Royal Academy Schools Show, London Royal Academy Summer Show, London2010 The Royal Academy Group Show, Galeria of Michael Aalders, St. Tropez, France Artists at Glenfiddich First and Second Exhibition, Dufftown, Scotland 4th International Art Fair ArtDaegu, Daegu, Korea Premiums Royal Academy Interim Exhibition, Sackler Galleries, London RA Show at the Royal Automobile Club, London 2009 Mindscape of the 21st Century, AndrewJamesArt, B-TAP, Shanghai RA School Show, The Dover Arts Club Exhibition, London2006 Zagreb 19:00 – Seoul 02:00 Simultaneous Exhibition between Korea and Republic of Croatia, Gallery COTT, Seoul, Korea2005 International Exchange Exhibition between Korea, Japan, U.S.A and China, Museum of contempo rary Art, Osaka University of Arts, Osaka, Japan


What You Eat Series

Acrylic on Polyester50 x 50 cm each


What You Eat I, 2012

Acrylic on Polyester50 x 50 cm


What You Eat IV, 2012



What You Eat II, 2012



What You Eat III, 2012



WWW, 2012

Acrylic on drafting film305 x 210 cm


Public Feelings, 2012



Celebrated Motion, 2012

Acrylic on drafting film and transparency36 x 44 cm


Organic Mask, 2012



Hidden Watch, 2012



Self Defense Tree, 2012



Tweeted Feelings, 2012



Understood Passivity, 2012



Stem Girls I, 2012

Acrylic on polyester62 x 83 cm


Stem Girls II, 2012

Acrylic on polyester62 x 83 cm


She has an Electronic Face II, 2012



She has an Electronic Face I, 2012



She has an Electronic Face III, 2012



Operation Table, 2012

Acrylic on drafting film, projection/video*152 x 152 cm

*In collaboration with David López Retamero


God Finger II, 2012



God Finger I, 2012



God Finger III, 2012



Virtualium, 2012

Acrylic on drafting film302 x 187cm


Internal Sequence IX, 2012



Handy Blossom, 2012



Bubble Communication, 2012



Cyber Love, 2012



1,084,785 views, 2012



196, 86 likes, 2012



6 dislikes, 2012



A discussion between the Director of The Jerwood Foundation, Lara Wardle,

and the artist HaYoung Kim

LW - Thank you for asking me to curate your forthcoming exhibition. It is a pleasure to be able

to be involved with your work and follow your career since awarding you the Jerwood Prize

in 2010. This is your second solo show since graduating from the Royal Academy Schools last

year and I wanted to ask how you feel your work has developed since your previous show.

HYK - Thank you for accepting my request to curate my solo show at Hoxton Art Gallery. It

has already been very special and encouraging for me to have you as my curator. I am very

excited about the character we will give this show together. Since my graduation show in

June last year, my interests have broadened and so my practice has broadened too and

somehow become more personal. After leaving the Royal Academy, I jumped into various op-

portunities. I went to New York for a two month residency programme and after that I joined

another artist residency programme in Arlington house, Camden, for five months. This experi-

ence outside of the academy allowed me to be an individual and to find my own way to com-

municate with the world. I felt as if I had taken off the royal gown and became the humble

me again. Now I am trying to find the best way to expose myself to the outside world and this

show will be a great stepping stone for this.

LW - When you mention that your work has in some way become personal, how much do you

draw upon your experiences of growing up in South Korea? When I came to your studio, you

mentioned that you had visited family again recently.

HYK - Yes, I did. I went to Korea last winter for two months to see my parents and close

friends. I hadn’t been back to Korea for two and a half years. I was surprised by all the fast

changes that had taken place. The places I used to go to had all changed into something com-

pletely different like a restaurant or a shop.

South Korea is a country which underwent rapid post-war development. The change is al-

most palpable in Seoul; which has been transformed from a pre-modern-looking town to a

large city full of the latest amenities and new buildings. One gets the feeling that the relent-


less work-ethic that is so visible in Seoul is a reflection of South Korea’s attempt to assert its

freedom from the powers of China, Japan and the USA. Yet this drive for independence has

created side-effects. In Seoul it is the overwhelming level of information available on every

surface that is the most noticeable.

Having been living in the UK for the past four years, I could observe my own country from a

different perspective over the two months that I was there. What was particularly striking

was how, in Seoul, there were so many advertisements for things like plastic surgery and

food juxtaposed in the same space. I felt disorientated by the mixture of all these unmatch-

able things that were all explicitly and fully ready to be consumed. This ‘unmatchable scenery’

for me feels like a contrived inside and outside. The cosmetic surgery advertisements una-

bashedly depicted natural ‘before’ and artificial ‘after’ photos of girls. It was so bizarre, the

girls’ faces looked as if they were made of plastic. And the nearby photos of well-presented

food conveyed a similar feeling. I felt light and heavy at the same time. Pretty shiny high-res-

olution figures drove me towards a sense of futility. I made a number of sketches based upon

this experience and transposed them into larger scale works.

LW - It is interesting that you write about ‘the overwhelming level of information available

on every surface’ as you often crowd your works with a huge amount of different images and

symbols. Is it important to you that the imagery and symbols are deciphered by the viewer or

do you prefer your paintings to remain enigmatic?

HYK - It is not always a successful endeavour to make the viewer understand what you are

thinking but I would like to believe that my work resonates with people, with a certain energy

and feelings. When I was a kid, I was so into Japanese and American animation and comic

books. After reading manga comics and watching numerous animations, their language and

style became unimportant to me. They merged in my mind into something more abstract, the

details becoming cut away and only the essential elements remaining and coming across like

‘codes’. This idea is linked to the reason why I paint with a simple graphic style. The images

that I collect and use for my paintings are from my daily experiences. When I find an appeal-

ing image I take a picture of it and make a sketch of it in my drawing book, and then I trans-


fer it to a bigger surface. The original image loses its initial information and figure. In this

process of distilling, which I think is similar to abstraction, I try to trim down the details of

the images and leave the essence of them there so that the viewer is free from the obligation

of understanding.

With excessive repetition images become like signs that have no deeper meaning or reference

beyond themselves. Baudrillard’s concept of the simulacrum is that which ‘bears no relation

to any reality whatsoever.’ Within our fast changing capitalist society, we consume images

without trying to associate them with any deeper meaning. Applying the Marxist critique of

capitalist ‘commodity fetishism’, we can say that we no longer think about the human-related

labour and history of a product but rather consume things that are simply objectified.

LW - I find your work very appealing and feel that part of this appeal for me comes from the

references to animation. It has a joyful, brightly coloured side but there’s always something

lurking underneath as you find in many animations and comics. Does it matter to you how the

viewer perceives the balance between the seriousness and light heartedness in your work?

HYK - I use the language of cartoon as a means of drawing the viewer into the picture. My

work has a friendly appeal, but also hides a dark story underneath. The key element with

creating artworks, for me, is the paradox between tough reality and humour. I choose to

express the modern human condition and its relationship with technology and human biology

in a bright, cartoonish and humorous way. I do this because I believe this way of storytelling

emphasizes what may lie behind the surface. The viewer can choose whether to look deeper

into the surreal and dark side of the work or stand back and appreciate the bright side.

LW - I also wanted to ask you about your technique and why you use different layers in your

works, including layers of acetate.

HYK - The process of painting on drafting film is strongly related to the subject matter of my

practice. I paint on the matt side of the drafting film with acrylic and glass paint and once I

finish this I turn it over so that the viewer can only see its glossy opposite side. The result is

a complete reversal of the traditional mode of making and viewing a painting. The very first


sketch that is normally invisible and hidden under subsequent layers of paint, is made imme-

diately visible, while the finishing touches are known only to me, the artist, but are concealed

from the viewer behind the earlier furtive strokes. All of the strokes are impossible to change

or fix once they are done. In this way, one can relate this process directly to the separation

between the conscious and the unconscious mind. The gloss or ‘finishing touches’ that we

place on our experiences, in order to construct our autobiographical selves, are most visible

to us but hidden from others. All the while, others can most directly perceive our raw actions

and guess their unconscious motivations without a distorting narcissistic lens. The aim of

these paintings is to achieve that feeling of complete exposure and vulnerability.

The material I use is consistent with the idea of virtual reality as a reflection of reality upon

a computer screen. Zizek has argued that the (post)modern situation under the influence of

science and virtual reality turns the whole of reality into something which ‘exists only on a

screen’, a depthless surface. I refer to the drafting film works as ‘screen paintings’, a term

which attempts to capture the effect that is produced in the reversing of the original images.

When approaching the work the viewer discovers that the paint is inaccessible, hidden be-

hind a glossy screen, yet, paradoxically, the process is immediately tangible by virtue of the

first stroke being seen first. In this sense, the drafting film works to accentuate the fact that,

despite our attempts to screen it, there is a traumatic Real we can’t suppress.

LW - Finally, I wanted to ask about the title of your new show ‘Eat All You Can’. Firstly, did you

choose this title? And also, presumably this is a reference to our relentless desire to con-

sume? I wonder whether you see consumerism as a necessity of modern living or something

we should be curbing our enthusiasm towards.

HYK - The reason for the title came from passing a Chinese buffet near where I live in

Clapham Junction. I saw a sign which said ‘Eat All You Can’ not ‘All You Can Eat’ outside the

restaurant. I thought this was very funny as it sounded like a military order and that we have

no chance but must eat all we can. I thought this was a perfect title for the show.

I have been making a ‘dish painting’ series, putting a mixture of icons, signs and emoti-

cons from the internet onto plates so that they seem like food that we can eat. My interest


in internet identity is linked to how digital images affect our body. The idea of ingesting the

information and images we see in daily life and then digesting them so that they become part

of our body. At first glance, my dish paintings seem to just contain fragmented signs and

symbols that pose no potential harm to us, inert epiphenomena. However, these images are

the source of various identifications and desires, they contribute to teaching us who we want

to be and how we want to consume; in them, we are reflected. In the works, this digital food

appears vulnerable and passively displayed, yet by making the association with food, I aim to

show how after we consume them they become a part of us.

54 / Hoxton Art Gallery HOXTON ART GALLERY

hayoung kim | eat all you can

Documents

century art

fine art

canhoxton art gallery

new jerwood gallery

jerwood foundation hayoung

jerwood collection

residence jerwood prize

century british art