Heryun KIM

“Happy is he…– Who hovers over life and effortlessly understands
The language of flowers and voiceless things!” -Charles Baudelaire

At the end of a certain poem among the “The Flowers of Evil,” through the ability to understand the “language of flowers and voice-less things,” Charles Baudelaire discovers how to achieve the greatest possible “elevation,” upwards and away from the daily miseries of human life. Clearly, the painter Heryun Kim has also become aware of the mysterious vitality transmitted by those things lacking speech and without voice. From the darkness of her painting ground, wary and tender flowers, fruits and leaf-like vegetational forms emerge.

Along with fruits, it is above all flowers which Kim transforms into in tragic figurations upon her canvases. Here as well, we are confronted with truly “voiceless things,” which satisfy Baudelaire’s longing for silent communication to excess. The abundance of coming and ceasing to be is now manifested from out of the blackened ground, emerging in the specific structure of flowers and blossoms.

In a magical way, Heryun Kim has succeeded with her pictures in making “voiceless things” eloquent. Beholders of her work can therefore safely judge themselves to be truly happy, as they will have obtained the elevating faculty of being able to understand – entirely in the manner that Baudelaire so desired in the last lines of his poem “Elevation.”

<On “Voiceless Things”>
Katrin Dillkofer
Art History, 2008

Heryun KIM
Born in Changwon, Korea

EDUCATION
1998 Ph.D Kunstwissenschaft, Technische Universitaet Berlin, Berlin, Germany
1994 Meisterschuelerin, Painting, Universitaet der Kuenste Berlin (UdK), Berlin, Germany
1993 Absolvent, Painting, Universitaet der Kuenste Berlin (UdK), Berlin, Germany
1990 Masters, Art Theory, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
1988 Bachelors, German Literature and Language, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITION
2016 <Wall of Sadness> Goethe Institute, Seoul, Korea
2015 Lighter Than the Wind, Centre Culturel Core`en, Paris, France
2014 The Complete Vessel, 313 Art Project, Seoul, Korea
2011 Letters Carved on Painting, Soma Museum, Seoul, Korea
2008 Moon Garden, Kunsthalle Dresden, Dresden, Germany
2007 Herbstapfel, Michael Schultz Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2005 Shoes for Art, Museum Ephraim-Palais, Berlin, Germany
2000 Konzentration und Weite, Galerie Netuschil, Darmstadt
2000 Way to the See, Hakgojae Gallery, Seoul, Korea

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITION
2016 Liquid Rooms-The Labyrinth, Venice Art House, Venice
2015 Spheres, Galeria Continua, Le Moulin, France
2015 Esprit Dior, Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP), Seoul
2015 The 70th Anniversary of Liberation, National Museum of Modern and                Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea    
2015 Eight Views and Nine-Bend Streams of Gyeonggi, Gyeonggi Museum of            Modern Art, Ansan, Korea
2015 Form und Raum, Galerie Netuschil, Darmstadt, Germany
2014 Residency 29, Art Center Usine Utopik, Tessy-sur -Vire, France
2014 2014 Paju Peace Station, Panmunjeom (JSA), Paju, Korea
2013 Golden DNA, Seonhwa Art and Culture Foundation Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2013 Korean Art: Era of Grand Navigation, Busan Museum of Art, Busan, Korea