27 Aug 2009 — 26 Sep 2009

 Hyena Kim's page
Hyena Kim
Those things I've done

Gallery 2 presents Hyena Kim(b.1981)’s solo show, Those things I’ve done. Kim makes a drawing with story telling-you can find a character repeatedly appearing in her works to weave a story line. The drawings, varied in size from A4 to 4-5m wide, are presented as a series of diary. Kim says that she began drawing to appease her indeterminate feeling of reluctance, despondency, or craving. The drawing as diary is a direct translation of her unconscious sensibility. Through the self-confessional stories and images, Kim manipulates and sometimes proliferates the self and the circumstances that go along it.

The scenes that Kim makes suggest a story but in ambiguous ways, recomposed in the unique visual language of the artist. The self-confessional story entangled in diverse color and twisted lines are set beside a series of inexplicable fantasies, hidden stories, and unrelated scenes in odd forms and incomprehensible composition-they constitute a fantastic space neither in heaven nor on earth, somewhere the audience could not distinguish the inside and the outside, an open space free from the reality principle. While the fragmented clusters of color express some unconscious elements, the deformed forms and the vivid flows of color dramatically articulate a series of discrete scenes. And yet, it is the main character of the drawing-one mass of head with drooping body-that leads the story line. Kim writes in her note:

“They could recognize a penetrating eye despite the absence of any mark suggesting an eye. The silhouette-the only unit of existence-and the ambiguous and boundless chiaroscuro in it make the characters appear. These existence conjured up in the picture as part of other accident are subjective characters, who are connected to objective characters though another accident.
… The graffiti-like way is for me an everyday work.
The possibility that I can manipulate myself and the space around me with selected texts and images is embodied in the sizable material and its potential capability so as to constitute a huge and powerful drawing. While the form becomes a motif and the characters subtly modify it, I am pleased at their flexibility and autonomy against different themes.”

In this show, Kim also attempts a new experiment with ‘lighting’ beyond the previous format of wall painting. She makes a site-specific painting on a piece of vinyl cloth corresponding in size to the ceiling of the gallery, which is supposed to cover the center column from the ceiling to the floor. The painting would be made from August 18th to 26th. As the red drawing on the vinyl cloth wraps the entire ceiling and flows down along the column to the floor, the exhibition space enveloped in the fluctuating red lines could look rather disagreeable. In a corner of the space, a few paintings are laid down, thus you have to turn your eyes down and bring out the works if you want see them. Now, let’s meet the message that Kim would communicate in Those things I’ve done, in which usual but unpleasant memories and trivia are transformed into attractive stories. 
Installation View