Open : Studio / Window / Far-off landscape
First, let us visit the studio in
. There is a desk. A pile of two books and an open one are on the desk. And a chair is laid askew. These things are described with lines as Kim BoMin has usually done in her earlier works. Of course, she did not draw the lines. She attached the line tape. All these things are covered with a kind of fog of Korean ink which is emitted from the cotton cloth. However, there is something strange here. Two objects are exceptions. These things are giving out light; mirror on the desk and window with the drawn up blind. The mirror is radiating unidentifiable white light and the window is bright with Ankyun's painting, . The mirror and window is so easily perceivable at once if someone sitting on the chair tries to look away from book on the desk. Then, why are they there? And why are they radiating light as exceptions inside of the fog of Korean ink?
The mirror in does not fulfill its original function. It does not reflect anything. It is empty. However, extending from the gaze looking at the mirror, there is a window filled with . Here, to tell you as a remark from the sidelines, it was not a mirror but the surface of water that Narcissus chose to look at himself. Water not only lets light through but also reflects it in the surface. Because of the characteristics, we can look at our faces in its surface as well as look through it. Therefore, the surface of water that Narcissus used to look at himself has the same characteristics with the image of glass window. Then, the window in can be regarded as surface of wate which reflects the image of the person who tries to look at himself/herself with the mirror or shows another world, far off landscape. Looking again, the studio is open (Open Studio). Through the window, the studio (present) brings the far-off landscape (past) inside. Or, through the window, the far-off landscape (past) brings the studio (present) outside. Perhaps, we could find the reflected image of the artist from this repetitive process of tracing.
In the Far-off: Line tape meets the hair pencil in Seoul where Han River runs.
Coming out to following the far-off landscape, we can only see the dreary scene of a city, Seoul. A could of fantasy is hanging over the city, in a same way over the people who are outside of Seoul and over the ones inside of Seoul. When it comes to the country people, they think of Seoul, an organic city which develops at high speed, as their ideal city, and long for coming to Seoul. They are covered with this cloud of fantasy. The cloud existed in the past and it still does. In addition, when it comes to the people living in Seoul, they are living in a false fantasy, thinking that the politics, economy, and culture of Seoul are in the same high level as those of Western big cities, setting aside the truth that this kind of fantasy is manipulated by institutions and ideology.
Through lines, Kim BoMin is giving shape to this familiar and (at the same time) unfamiliar aspect of Seoul. According to the methodology of traditional Oriental painting, making lines means both drawing and writing. A piece of painting achieves its beauty of perfection through the harmony of painting and writing revealed through lines. However, in Kim BoMin's Seoul landscapes, while the drawing meaning of making lines is maintained, writing is replaced by attaching. Using coarseness and dreariness of line tape, Kim sketches the landscape of Seoul; scandalized apartments and skyscrapers, streets between them, and tower-like cranes which represent ongoing developments. The images of Seoul viewed from Kims perspective are expressed in a minimal way borrowing line tapes.
However, the emphasis must be given not to the line tapes but to the act of attaching them. Attaching lines following the outlines means creating a separation between inside and outside with the border line and also making the space empty. That is, the city Kim BoMin is representing is an empty signifier. In the streets, we cannot see a car or a person, or a blazing neon sign. Buildings are stereotyped; all of them are rectangular. Unrealistically described Kim's empty Seoul shows the image of Seoul after it being disclosed the fantasy. This kind of description of Seoul is contrasted by the drawing done with a hair pencil. The domain of drawing seems idealistic. Isnt Ankyun's , painting inside of painting, , only describing the space of dream? In fact, it is an empty space where we cannot get near. However, this space is materialized by repetitive act of drawing as if it was the reality.
Both the space of drawing and the one of attaching exist in the city. Here, like the traditional ( and ) and the modern (skyscrapers, streets, cranes), hair pencil drawing and line tape attaching, many things which cannot easily be with each other co-exist, making an unrealistic world. This is what Seoul looks like when we put it in the diachronic structure of time. Looking away from this, however, Kim BoMin pays attention to Han River. Han River quietly runs through the heart of Seoul. It did run in the past, and it still does. In Kim's Han River, a ferry boat, a symbol of the past, and a modern boat sail in the same time zone. This corresponds to the shape of the picture plane which is long in the width. The horizontal composition of picture moves the eyes of audiences from left to right, right to left. This kind of eye movement brings the dichotomized relations together into the field of synchronic sight.
Look at the mirror and window sitting on the chair, again.
After moving around the various time zones in several places of the city with holding the line tape and hair pencil, Kim BoMin comes back to the . The encounter of present and tradition represented by line tape and hair pencil attracted many people. Therefore, many exhibitions such as Fusion Asian Paintings and City invited Kim's works. Moreover, not just through these exhibitions, we have also easily found her works in art and fashion magazines and newspapers. In my thought, she even might not have had any time to sit on a chair which she kicked away going out to see the far-off landscape. However, now she makes one more chance to sit on the chair. It was a wise decision because she decided to do it again before her style got fixed.
In this exhibition, Kim BoMin removes the word off from the far-off landscape which she once looked at in a distance. As I mentioned in footnote 1, the word has the time and spatial meaning. Therefore, the removal of this word means that she comes nearer to the outside world surrounding her life. From a distant view outlooking the whole, she takes the close range view. From the dependence to the totalistic style (the encounter of the tradition and present), she focuses on the here and now. Doing this, she freed herself from her earlier obsession to the encounter of the tradition and present. The encounter is attractive but a simple and obsessed one has no further meaning. In this respect, we have to focus on , , , .
Interior space which looks similar to the ones of earlier works comes nearer to the surrounding world of life. Someone might have stayed in the space. Things are messy; the vacuum cleaner is on the floor, refrigerator, drawer of closet and bathroom door are wide open. These features are not much different from the ones showed in the earlier works. However, the world viewed through the window of is the outside landscape of here and now. Even with this, Kim still does what she tried to pursue in her works; making a subtle crevice between everyday life and virtual reality and strange situations (from the artists note). This, inversely, shows that we do not have to seek the collision of the two from the context of tradition and present. And this might be what the artist was thinking sitting on the chair of after coming back. I hope her to come back, from time to time, to the chair of this always and to sit on it. Just like she is doing now.
By Daebeon Lee / Independent Curator
