Sculptor Kim Yun Shin is widely recognised for her intimate attention to materiality and philosophical approaches to her practice.
Read MoreKim Yun Shin was born in 1935 in Wonsan, in what is now North Korea. She was one of the first women to formally study sculpture, graduating with a bachelor of fine arts from Hongik University in 1959, and going on to study sculpture and lithography at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. She is regarded as one of Korea's first-generation female sculptors.
Kim returned to Korea in 1969, taking up a post at Sangmyung University and cofounding the Korea Sculptress Association. She continued to teach until 1983. In 1984, Kim relocated to Argentina, drawn by its landscapes and the sculptural possibilities of the textures of the local algarrobo (carob) tree, where she has continued to build and develop her artistic practice. The Museo Kim Yun Shin opened in Buenos Aires in 2008, inaugurated by Kim herself. Today, she is an influential practitioner in the Argentinian art scene.
Kim works primarily with hardwood, alongside other natural materials, including onyx and stone. Her pieces are abstract and draw on traditional Korean forms, ideas, and spirituality, alongside influences from her periods living in France, Mexico and Argentina and Kim's own philosophical approaches to nature and the universe.
Kim's practice engages intimately with materiality. Her sculptures are mostly spontaneous and unplanned. She chips and carves away at blocks of wood—often using a chainsaw—attuning her own energy to the natural qualities found in a material's vibrations, shadows and echoes to intuitively work her way through her primary medium.
Stacking Origins (c. 1970), is a typical example of Kim's early work. It groups together a number erect wooden structures, each of which is constructed as a series of irregular wooden blocks arranged vertically atop one other, some of which stand straight while others curve and lean, as if defying gravity. Notable across her works is the recurring title and concept of Add Two Add One, Divide Two Divide One, in which Kim reflects on the polar natures of yin (fragmentation and division) and yang (convergence and integration). Kim approaches her artistic practice as embracing the oscillations between these energies, and the possibilities of creation springing from this interaction.
While sculpture remains her key practice, Kim also works with paint and lithography. In these, she plays with organic and intuitive strokes and using colour to create meditative and abstracted pieces, such as in Chal-la 2020-18 (2020), which features repeated lines spiralling out from each other in cool tones of blues, whites and greys.
Kim Yun Shin's works have been exhibited locally (in both Korea and Argentina) and internationally. Her work has featured in exhibitions at the Sao Paulo Biennale; Seoul Museum of Art; Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art; Mexico National Museum of Modern Art; and Beijing International Sculpture Park.
Arianna Mercado | Ocula | 2024
