Isolated Garden

APT artist Jin Kim is presenting his solo show "Isolated Garden"

From watching his painting carefully, the viewers can learn that an artist, Kim, Jin’s work of art has developed slowly because he was a trained artist in the first place.  I am not capable of explaining about the attractive features of his paintings well to those who have not seen them for themselves.  Instead, about the attractiveness of his paintings, I’d like to draw agreeable responses from those who have already appreciated them by using a question tag.  It is amazing to see him complete a big painting in a short time, using intense colors, isn’t it?  In his painting is a familiar place or an unfamiliar place where we have never been.  Even if it is a familiar place, it seems unfamiliar because it is described differently in his painting, making us feel as if visiting another place.

Unlike most paintings, for which artists draw a sketch and shade in it with colors to make a form and express light and shade, he applies dark colors on canvas in the first place and makes one brushstroke at a time while balancing colors and the overall tone of his painting.  Flowing toward certain directions, those lines that are not straight or curved are like traffic lanes that lead us to spaces that he stayed.  In other words, his painting is a journal of his stay in certain places.  People might wonder why his journal is all about some indoor spaces like a room.  However, a long business trip to another place, a detached duty or study overseas, and an artist-residency program should not be classified as a sightseeing tour.  What we usually think of a life of studying abroad is that one might be enlightened from a sudden inspiration that he or she may have during a break in his or her continuous apprenticeship to a master.  However, most international students spend their time in their room where they eat and sleep.  One of his paintings made in England is a self-portrait, in which he is standing as a ghost of Chesterfield, blended in his old room and shabby house as if his painting were a “Find the hidden picture”. 

Viewed from many aspects, all of his paintings are exotic, sad, and depictive of an attraction that has both the dynamics and the stillness.  (I’ve already mentioned above, ‘I am not capable of explaining about the attractive features of his paintings well to those who have not seen them for themselves.’)  Every time he has to explain about his work of art, he has articulated his thoughts for his artwork and the process of it logically.  Accordingly, art critics have responded to his artist statement with their critiques of his works and exhibitions.  Even though <Isolated garden>, his solo exhibition held from 2015 to 2016 is about his new experiment, his view of the world, his brevity in dealing with reality, and his good attitude to stick to his subject matter while creating a form of his work have not changed at all.  Therefore, I think that the viewers should read his artist statement and critiques of his works written before this one to understand an artist, Kim, Jin better.  What follows is a brief summary of them.

As a lot of people have worries and expectations when they move to a new place, an artist, Kim, Jin also had both of them when he moved to a new place.  Besides, he was an artist who had a great vision and keen senses.  After finishing his study in England, he had made his artwork in Paju and China before settling down in Daegu as a professor in a University a few years ago.  London was a city where he developed his artworks a lot, and, obviously, his house at that time was a shelter from the difficulty of studying abroad that made him protect himself and lock himself at the same time.  All of the visual elements of the house including an English garden and a massive collection of antique furniture were about a space established with the concept of time and his endeavor to find his true identity in the boundary between the inside and outside of the house, his home and a place away from home, his life and art, nature and art, etc.  A lot of layers of rough lines like those in printmaking are made in his brushstroke.  An indoor space described in his painting has doors and windows that function as a device separating the interior and exterior.  He creates his own space beyond a certain place.

As explained above, without using any inkhorn term, he tells us well about his view of artworks and why he makes paintings.  Also, in my opinion, it is obvious that his works are qualified to be part of the history of art and full of references to certain artworks from the past.  However, he might feel constrained in the future due to the images of his works made in a short time, the narrative of his works that seems to have symmetry with the images, and the concept of his works that is applied to them repeatedly.  His personal history written about a life of a stranger could be a generalized history that a lot of other artists and scholars might also feel empathy for.  Even so, a good speaker who turns a dull story into an interesting one is always welcome.  That he sees what other people don’t and tries to reorganize a space in his own way is apparently what we should respect him for.

He creates his artworks dialectically with an air of freshness by applying what he thinks is the standard of art to his new environment, which is the most important feature of his solo exhibition this time.  As a professor, he has been jumping another hurdle that he might feel uneasy about.  He turns his gaze on his students who are blockaded in the border zone more thoroughly than himself.  The classroom where those students make their work is the subject matter of his works for the exhibition.  The title, ‘Isolated garden’ is about a metaphorical place that visualizes the classroom and an English garden that he has paid attention to since his school years in London.  Also, the title of his previous work, ‘N_either’ meaning ‘not the one or the other’ has ambiguous meanings that symbolize his circumstances at that time, conceived from the fact that it is pronounced ‘niːðə’ in America while it is pronounced ‘naɪðə’ in England.  Likewise, he emphasizes that ‘Isolated garden’ has a lot of meanings including ‘Alienated garden’.

Among his recent works are certain descriptive paintings of the garden, while others are abstract paintings with tinted colors and rough lines.  Those two styles of his painting are different from his previous ones, giving me an impression that the garden that he expresses is neither descriptive, nor abstract and functions as a means for him to create his own artwork.  What lies between the descriptive elements and the abstract ones in his painting symbolizes art students who are raised beautifully, but forced to lock their dreams in the garden under the control of education authorities.  Do what he symbolizes encourage his pupils?  Does it make progress on his works and change the world?  Not like his intention, it might make him selfish, conservative, and narcissistic.  No one knows yet how what he symbolizes will change.  Right now we can’t do anything except watch him paint what he experiences on his own canvas, which encompasses places where he stays and his gaze on them, including his expectation of leaving his room for another place like a broad street or a large field.

(Yoon, Kew-Hong, Art Director/ Sociology of Art)