Exhibition Highlight - Hong Sik-Kim

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Exhibition Highlight

June, 1999

Monthly Art | Choi Gwang-jin, Art Critic


Cloud village, 1999, Acrylic on canvas, wood, mirror, PVC, 366 x 1,016 x 274(d) cm ยฉ Artist

This exhibition by Wheiza Kim, held four years after her exhibition at the Seoul Arts Center, is significant in that the questions concerning existence, which the artist has persistently pursued, have undergone further development and found expression in sculptural form. A particularly noteworthy formal characteristic of this exhibition is the construction of three-dimensional triangular structures incorporating mirrors arranged along their triangular interiors. On the surfaces of these structures, Kim depicts images drawn from nature, including clouds, mountains, trees, birds, the sea, and human figures. These elaborate natural images, predominantly rendered in silver tones, attract the viewer's gaze and offer an engaging visual experience. Yet viewers soon come to recognize that the images reflected in the triangular mirrors are mere illusions.
 
The relationship between reality and illusion has long been a central concern in Kim's artistic practice. After encountering Zen Buddhism, she came to the conclusion that everything in the world originates from emptiness (็ฉบ), a state of nothingness, and that the visible phenomenal world consists of illusory appearances produced by our own delusions.


Beyond This World, We Ask, โ€œHow Far Have We Come?โ€ and Answer, โ€œHalfway to Eternityโ€, Acrylic and mirrors on plywood, 122 x 108 x 70(d) cm ยฉ Artist

Ultimately, Kim came to recognize that the myriad manifestations of the world are conditioned by the mind, and that human desire and attachment create the kaleidoscopic illusions of worldly existence. To convey this understanding, she adopted the structure of a kaleidoscope, using mirrors as a central element of her sculptural compositions. Here, the triangle, with its three vertices, may be understood as a form of desire in which instability and perfection stand in opposition. The mirror, meanwhile, serves as a metaphorical expression of the human mind: a field onto which the captivating presence of an illusory space is projected through the interplay of desire, its emergence and reverberation, and the recurring cycle of distortion.
 
Kim, however, does not reject the illusions that she regards as the transient reality of the phenomenal world. Rather, by rendering them vividly, she seeks to embrace the contradictions of life and attain genuine freedom of mind through contemplative observation. This attitude of enjoying both the freedom of the observer and the process of observation itself may be understood as an insight gained through her longstanding engagement with Yogฤcฤra philosophy (ๅ”ฏ่ญ˜ๅญธ), the Buddhist tradition concerned with the nature of consciousness and perception. By reinterpreting the Eastern philosophical thought she has cultivated through sustained spiritual discipline in a contemporary visual language, Kim's work offers a point of orientation for modern individuals who have lost their sense of direction amid indiscriminate deconstruction and destruction. It is in this respect that her work acquires its significance.

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