KIM YuJung

Kim Yu Jung inspects the “possibility of taming a life form” with the subject matter of ornamental plants. Ornamental plants like potted flowers maintain life with care from someone. The artist contemplates this passive way of growth, in consideration of human life. Kim portrays images by scratching a plaster wall before it dries in traditional fresco technique, creating monotone scenes. Flower pots in gray are a remainder of the wounded self that lost its distinctive subjectivity and motive power. Images that look like wild plants as well as flower pots are actually in an ironic state: they are confined to a gigantic botanical garden connotative of a social structure in which our lives are dominated by fixed systems. Kim tries to unveil a subtle conflict between comfort that can be secured through protection and control and individual desire through passive decorative plants. The artist pursues the recovery of subjectivity and healing of wounds through an active deed breathing life into the plants by ceaselessly scratching.

Kim ji ye (Oci Museum Curator)

The bilateral relation among objects in her work reminds us of the diverse relations we have with our surroundings, moving beyond the relations between man and plant, artificiality and nature. This reveals suppression and violence, plus the injury and conflict innate in our quotidian relations. As the objects reflect the relationships social members have established, they make us feel inconvenient. Meanwhile, a return of the oppressed creates cracks in social relations, establishes something new that replaces the pre-existing relation that has been considered quite natural. In her recent work Dream of the Green, the artist recovers the life force of nature ousted from an artificial environment. Moderate color is intermittently used to accent her scene, revealing intense symbolism. In Dream of the Green, green plants at the center of the scene are in stark contrast with black-and-white nature in a greenhouse full of distorted energy and lost vitality.

The appearance of a woman digging up a plant from the lifeless man-made earth or an artificial garden dominated by distorted life force at the center of the scene suggests that Kim’s work has moved on to a different phase. Whereas her previous work was a symbolic manifestation of the relation between man and plant, attention and suppression, and the problem of establishing relations with surroundings, she now creates narratives through figures in her work.

Return of the Oppressed

By Ki Hey-kyung, Curator of National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea

KIM YuJung
Born in 1974, Incheon, Korea

EDUCATION
2009 Ph. D. Painting, College of Fine Arts Dankook University, Korea
2002 M. Ed. in Art Education, Korea University, Korea
1997 B.F.A, Painting, College of Fine Arts, Dankook University, Korea

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITION
2014 Reversed Landscape, Sunkwang Art Museum, Incheon, Korea
2013 Silent Garden, E-Land Space, Seoul, Korea
2012 Yujung Kim Frescos Solo Exhibition, Shinsegae Centum City, Busan, Korea
2011 Landscape with Flower Pots, Gallery Grimson, Seoul, Korea
Upside-downed inside, Shinsegae Gallery, Incheon, Korea
2008 Skin of the Roof,Insa Art Center, Seoul, Korea
2006 China International Art Festival, China
2005 Unable to hold a Shadow, jung Gallery, Seoul, Korea
Shadow of Desire, Shinsegae Gallery, Indeco Gallery, Incheon, Seoul, Korea
2003 Reading the Wall and Shadow, Kwanhoon Gallery, Seoul, Korea

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITION
2015 The 6th-term Incheon Art Platform Resident Artists Preview, Incheon Art Platform, Incheon, Korea
Art fair Tokyo, Tokyo International Forum Exhibition Hall, Japen
2014 ZIPPO Museum LOVE 100 Inaugural Exhibition, Jeju, Korea
Cre8tive Report, OCI Museum of Art Studio Resident Artists Exhibition, OCI Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea
Artist Tomorrow Selected Artist Exhibition, Gyeomjae Jeong Seon Museum, Seoul, Korea
2013 True-view Landscapes Today Recommended by 11 Critics, Gyeomjae Jeong Seon Museum, Seoul, Korea
KIAF, Coex, Seoul, Korea
Mr. Hulot’s Holiday, Songwon Art Center, Seoul, Korea
Pause, Shinhan Gallery Yeoksam, Seoul, Korea
Drawing, the Beginning of Thought, Pre-drawing Biennale, Art Factory, Paju, Korea