statement

In my new series of work, I am interested in the processes of transformation as well as revealed humanistic commonalities when one culture or belief system meets another whether through violent collision or fluid assimilation. This interest in duality is something that has also manifested itself in previous bodies of work of mine for years although not as prominently as in this new series, and perhaps something that can be traced back to my own personal background: born in NJ, but raised in Seoul, Los Angeles, and Southern Illinois before moving to the Bay Area for college, and finally relocating back to the Midwest, I was constantly reformulating my own identity in the context of my own environment, while also realizing those certain commonalities that tie us all together despite cultural, ethnic, and linguistic barriers. 

With a presupposition that myths contain collective cultural human narratives while also being heavily influenced by Carl Jung and his theory on archetypes and collective consciousness as well as Claude Levi-Straussí Myth and Meaning and the theory of structural anthropology, I use images of iconic mythological and/or archetypical figures from different cultures and historical photographs as visual metaphors. I often choose those mythological figures that are analogous to each other such as a nine-tailed fox of Asia/Medusa of Greek mythology, South Asian World Turtle/Western Atlas/Native American Turtle Island, Western unicorn/Chinese qillin, Persian Simorgh/East Asian phoenix.  By combining these figures and shredded photographs in various states of schism, fluid transformation, and/or mutual disappearance, I am attempting to investigate - through the multilayered process of my art making -how one form inevitably changes itself as well as its recipient when this fusion happens. My aim is to create a dialectical dialogue that poses questions about the history of cultural exchange especially in the midst of today's globalization while investigating those cultural beliefs that also seem to point to our commonalities and collective consciousness. My process is not necessarily medium-specific, but rather interdisciplinary: I juxtapose countless layers of images made through mark-making that play with various abstract forms that mimic traditional art works and historical photographs from different cultures with those of mythological symbols, figures, and archetypes.  I often incorporate layers of translucent synthetic paper, charcoal, graphite, inks, oils, acrylic, and cutouts in order to convey the sense that it is these complex layers of independent images that form the harmonious and yet non-linear whole.  

bio

born: 1983, Passaic, NJ

education

Mills College, MFA, 2008
University of California-Berkeley, BA in Art History, 2006
University of California-Berkeley, BFA in Art Practice, 2006

selected awards/honors

Indiana University East Summer Faculty Fellowship, 2016
Indiana University New Frontiers Exploratory Travel Grant in Arts and Humanities, 2015
Murphy & Cadogan Fellowship, San Francisco Arts Commission, 2007
Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts Artist Residency, 2016

selected publications

FreshPaintMagazine; Issue 10. Philadelphia, PA: FreshPaintMagazine p. 36-7, 2015
Tallahassee International; 30th Annual Exhibition. Tallahassee, FL: Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts p.14, 2015
Force of Nature: Exploring the Power of the Feminine; Natinal Juried Exhibition. Plymouth, NH: MagCloud p. 62, 2015

selected solo or two-person exhibits

Muse Gallery @ Hilton Hotel Downtown: Ann Kim and Hana Yilma, Columbus, OH, 2016
Leeds Gallery at Earlham College: Organicity, Richmond, IN, 2013
Reid Hospital: Works by Ann Kim, Richmond, IN, 2012
Color of Energy Gallery: Tensions and Dualities, Dayton, OH, 2010

selected group shows

S. Tucker Cooke Gallery, University of North Carolina Asheville: 7th Annual Drawing Discourse: International Contemporary Drawing Exhibition, Asheville, NC 2016
Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts: Tallahassee International, Tallahassee, FL, 2015
Masur Museum of Art: 52nd National Juried Exhibition, Monroe, LA, 2015
Stephen F. Austin Univeristy Cole Gallery: Texas National, Nacogdoches, TX 2015