Patrick Heide Contemporary Art is delighted to present the second solo exhibition of Minjung Kim in London.
In her new show with the gallery the Korean artist expands her repertoire of large scale rice paper collages with her latest “Tension” and “Street” series.
Mostly monochromatic and much more linear than many of the earlier series, Kim’s new works move towards the minimal and reductive. Strips of rice paper are cut and burnt at the edges and then fused together to form repetitive, vibrant and sensuous, abstract compositions.
In her exhibition "Tension" Kim explores and experiments with new compositional forms. The title giving piece "Tension" displays an expansive spiral of linear red burnt strips of paper. In the new "Street" series the artist investigates the flower-like motive and its variations known from her successful ‘pieno di vuoto’ series but all single shapes are more layered and remain monochrome, reminiscent of carnations. One work in the "Street" series is even fully black.
The layering and overlapping, that has been consistent in Minjung's collages, suggests different levels of existence and with it a transience of time. Extremely effective in 'Story', horizontally torn vertical segments of paper are reunited to a softly undulating landscape of beautiful equilibrium hinting at a superior harmony of the cosmos.
Kim’s collages hover between explosions of colour to fading matter, where the soul behind the work becomes the essence of meaning.
Through a synthesis of Western and Eastern techniques, of creation and destruction (through burning), of spirituality and conceptual approach Kim expresses her version of chi in Chinese, ghee in Korean, a type of universal life force energy that suggests a sensation of continuance, a force that transcends time and space.
‘My work as always been a visualization of Zen and Tao. In this great philosophies there is the idea of the two opposed principles of void and solid, between which there exists a continuous tension that causes reality to exist. It’s a deeply philosophical vision. The two opposed principles change continuously, and this constitutes the essence, the driving force, that moves the world. As a painter I have very limited materials. A sheet of paper on which to express this incessant change.’
Born in Gwangju, Korea in 1962 Kim studied Oriental painting at Honk Ilk University in Seoul where she graduated with a Master in 1985. In 1991 she moved to Italy and studied at the Brera Art Academy in Milan.