Hanil Cement | Theme Zone — The Force That Keeps Me Running. Today’s Hottest Korean Painter, Kim Hyun Jung

The Force That Keeps Me Running

Kim Hyun Jung, selected as the youngest artist for the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art's Korean painting special exhibition in September 2015. Countless phrases have been used to describe her — 'the idol of Korean painting,' 'audacious imagination' — but she says being called a 'Korean painter' feels most natural.

Born in 1988, Kim Hyun Jung is a Korean painter. In June 2015 she successfully wrapped up a solo exhibition at a sizable 330-square-meter gallery, and her ongoing 'Naesoong' series will run for about a month starting in March. She has also kept a busy schedule from the very first month of the new year — exhibiting and lecturing on her Naesoong series works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in January 2016 — making it no exaggeration to call her the hottest artist right now.

"I'm delighted to have the opportunity to exhibit my work in the US. I actually give many lectures in Korea too, but it's a genuinely difficult field every time. To prepare for a lecture I feel I need to watch and study a great deal, so I go through an average of over 100 lecture videos before preparing. It's the same with writing — I need to read a lot before I can write something with my own thoughts in it. Preparing for whatever task is given to me is how I feel myself grow. I don't want to do anything halfheartedly, once I'm doing it at all. Doing it properly takes that much effort."

Naesoong: Cute Because You Can See Right Through It

Born in 1988, twenty-something Korean painter Kim Hyun Jung first drew attention for painting women who reflect her own image. Rather than the static, composed women of old folk paintings, she captures women living in this era under the title 'Naesoong' (feigned innocence).

"When I painted the picture that became the origin of the Naesoong series, I was painting someone I resented. Watching people who smiled and complimented me to my face but spoke ill of me behind my back, I started fighting back through painting (laughs). But one day, while working, I happened to look in a mirror and realized how much I resembled the woman in my painting. That's when it hit me — I wasn't so different from the people I resented. From that day on I began painting women of this era whose outside and inside differ, using myself, one of them, as the model. Even I speak calmly in a formal setting like this, but I'm not like that when I'm with friends. Rather than portraying that gap negatively, I wanted to paint it as 'naesoong.' Naesoong is behavior where your true feelings are completely transparent — too light to call a lie, pretending otherwise while it's all plainly visible. It's endearing."

Kim's Naesoong women sit cross-legged in hanbok, cook and eat ramyeon, and hold a billiard cue.

"I get a lot of inspiration from moments in my actual daily life. For example, the piece 'Battle' came from a moment when I'd skipped meals while working and was about to collapse, then wolfed down food like I was fighting a battle — I thought, 'this is exactly what naesoong is,' and made it into a work. I want to capture our lives, our present moment, in the style of Korean painting this way. The theme of 'Naesoong Olympics' likewise reflects the interests of Koreans in 2016 — not sports events removed from our reality, but things ordinary people enjoy, like billiards, skateboarding, and neighborhood park exercise equipment. The 'Naesoong Amusement Park' series showing from March isn't very different either. Of course there are works depicting a figure in hanbok riding amusement rides, but it started from the question, 'where is the amusement park that makes people my age happy?' Besides painting and working, I really love shopping — just adding things to my cart on my favorite online shopping site makes me happy, and I love Daiso for the thousand-won happiness it gives me (laughs). I think places that offer that kind of small joy are the real amusement parks of modern people. And I hope my exhibition, which captures people's amusement parks, can also be another kind of playground where visitors can come comfortably, enjoy the paintings, chat, and live a little."

The Pride of Drawing a Record 3,733 Visitors in a Single Day

Kim Hyun Jung is always present at her own exhibitions, meeting and talking directly with visitors. For young visitors, she hopes the memory of the exhibition stays positive so they grow up staying close to art; with women in their twenties and thirties around her own age, she shares today's interests and tastes. And visitors of her parents' generation mostly say they're grateful and proud of her.

"I'm especially happiest when visitors around my mother's age come to my exhibition and enjoy looking around. I'd love for it to be an exhibition they can casually drop by, one they can come to hand in hand with their daughters."

Perhaps her sincerity has come through — her exhibitions are now counted among the most visited in Korea today. She says that pride and attention make her work even harder and more persistently.

"When I first started doing various kinds of art activities, it was simply work I began because I enjoyed it alone, but now I feel more gratitude toward the people who cheer me on and the team I work with. My sense of responsibility has grown too — 'I can't stop now' — and I've come to feel a certain pride even in criticism, thinking of it as a form of attention. Honestly, since holding my first solo exhibition at 25 and running ever since, there have been many ups and downs, and there were times I thought, 'isn't this too much for a student who just loved painting?' On the surface I may look elegant and graceful, but I sometimes felt like a swan paddling frantically beneath the water. But I've realized that to survive amid such opinions, what I need is an unshakeable, stronger conviction of my own."

True to a young artist, she communicates with her audience through SNS, sharing stories about her work and activities. Within that, she gains further inspiration and is opening up a genre she calls 'social drawing,' created together with her audience.

"I tend to explain my work in simple writing, and I'm always amazed and grateful when I see comments that show far deeper understanding and interest than my own words. Sometimes people answer the questions I raise with even bigger ideas. I want to actively make use of this extension of collective intelligence — where the public and the artist discuss and complete a piece of work together, in other words, participatory art. I hope this kind of movement can help make art feel more familiar, and become a part of culture that anyone can enjoy."

Kim Hyun Jung Solo Exhibition: Naesoong Amusement Park

Dates: March 15 – April 12, 10 AM – 7 PM

Venue: Gallery IS (100-5 Gwanhun-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul)

Written by — Text: Editorial Office