JIWON KIM

Kim Jiwon has always been keeping a close eye on the scenes of everyday life including natural scenery. Kim does not simply recreate the subjects of nature and scenes of his everyday life by replicating the figurations of the subject matters. Rather, he constantly studies and questions the figures and images that he encounters of which are translated onto his canvas as an alternative reality that exists only on the canvas. The creative combination of colours, the images that oscillate the boundaries of the figurative and the abstract, the coarsely painted surface of the canvas all revel in the wonderful formation of art, which allow the viewers to experience the captivating visual world of Kim Jiwon.

The title of this exhibition, canvas fly, is an ambiguous expression that refers to the location where the activities of drawings/paintings take place. The phrase ‘canvas fly’ implies the journey of the artist’s aesthetic expression, where he has decided to settle on the medium of canvas after circling around a bunch of different mediums. While the series of ‘Mendrami’ and ‘landscape’ are painted on canvas from a first-person perspective of the artist himself, the ‘canvas fly’ series are painted from a third-person perspective at a high altitude overlooking the scenes of the studio where the actions of painting and drawing are taking place at. The airplanes that have been placed all over the artist’s studio since the 2000s are simple but witty installation works of Kim, made of wooden frames of canvas, used-up paint brushes and picked-up wooden branches. A collection of these wooden airplanes will be showcased at the exhibition for the first time.

In addition to this, a collective series of paintings and drawings of ‘fly’ and ‘untitled’ depict the scenes of the studio seen from above. The paintings of mobiles hanging from the ceiling of the studio are painted in a carefree, haphazard manner which deliver a sense of fresh liveliness to the viewers. The works displayed in the exhibition present the most up-to-date artistic world of Kim Jiwon, demonstrating his usage of diverse mediums with extended and diversified perspectives.

Kim Jiwon majored in fine arts education at Inha University and in fine art at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stӓdel School, Frankfurt, Germany, and is currently a professor at the School of Visual Arts, Korea National University of Arts. His awards and past exhibitions include the 15^th Lee In Sung Art Prize and solo exhibitions at Daegu Art Museum, Kumho Museum of Art, The Hite Collection, group exhibitions at National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul Museum of Art, Busan Museum of Art, Culture Station Seoul 284, Sungkok Art Museum, Ilmin Museum of Art, Art Sonje Center, Yanhuang Art Museum, Beijing, and National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, among other renowned Korean and international venues. His works are included in the collections of numerous art institutions such as the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, and Art Sonje Center.