HK Art & Antiques LLC
Myong Hi Kim
Butterfly boy
2006
Oil pastel on chalkboard
20.4 x 14.1 in. (52 x 36 cm)
Kim’s oil pastel on chalkboard works are neither occupied nor unoccupied. Children may pose in the woods or play in schoolyards, but nothing in Kim’s work is as it seems; she explains, “…the vision that I present is that of apparition rather than appearance….” As the black of her chalkboard surface reads as shadow and darkness, her oil sticks bring to view apparitions that glow with realism and artifice at once. Through her work, through careful rendering of elusive yet fully present light effects, Kim shares her understanding that events are never discrete and are of multiple spaces and times. The situation of the individual within the rugged terrain of their life comes home softly as her light touch in rendering form contrasts with the circumstance of lives as varied as the immigrant child and the displaced citizen.
Kim’s paintings on chalkboards are symbolist portraits, and often fuse the Korean people’s nomadic history and her own experiences with keen insight on issues of displacement and migration both voluntary and forced. Observing the trajectory of Kim’s life with the figures in her paintings, art critic Eleanor Heartney notes: “But despite Kim’s awareness of the toll exacted by time and history, her ultimate message is one of hope…. Similarly, the figures in her paintings, however much burdened by outside forces, remain resilient and unbowed.”
MYONG HI KIM (b. 1949, Seoul, Korea) lives and works in New York and an abandoned schoolhouse in a tiny mountain village in Kangwon Province, South Korea. Highly regarded for her unconventional oil pastel on chalkboard works, she is best known for her multi-layered symbolist landscapes and portraits that fuse image, text and myth in imaginative narratives that span time and place. Raised in South Korea, Japan, and England, she was among the first wave of South Korean artists to move to New York, where she lived from 1975 until her return to Korea in 1990. She has been living in both places since then. She graduated from Seoul National University and studied at Pratt Institute, New York. Her recent solo exhibitions include: Art Projects International, New York (2015, 2012) and Gallery Hyundai, Seoul (2012). Her work has been exhibited at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea; Seoul Museum of Art, Korea; Ho-Am Art Museum, Seoul; Whanki Museum, Seoul; Ewha Women’s University Museum, Seoul; Jeonbuk Museum of Art, Korea; and American University Museum, Washington, DC. Her work is represented in major public collections including the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea; National Assembly, Seoul; Whanki Museum, Seoul; Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Korea; Seoul Museum of Art, Korea; and Daejeon Museum of Art, Korea.
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