Bild Zeitung (Germany) | B.Z. — Becoming a Star with a Feigned Innocence
German daily newspaper B.Z. introduced Korean painter Kim Hyun Jung as one of South Korea's most successful painters, covering her exhibition history at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and her solo exhibition, 'History of a Feigned Innocence,' at the Korean Cultural Center in Berlin. The article explained that Kim combines traditional painting techniques with Western-style collage and images of consumer goods to paint self-portraits, and that she conveys a message to look beneath appearances through the legs that show through the slit of her hanbok skirt.
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Behind the glass wall of the Korean Cultural Center, Kim Hyun Jung (28) is playfully coquettish with her own 'innocence.' With fine brushstrokes she touches the paper, painting the trees at Leipziger Platz. Seemingly free of desire and at peace with the world.
Hard to believe: within her own four walls in Seoul, Kim Hyun Jung can become a shopping monster! "I love shopping. In Korea, online shopping is practically part of the culture," the young Korean artist tells BZ.
Kim Hyun Jung (whose name means: everything in her surroundings is illuminated) combines, in her own self-portraits up to five meters tall, traditional Asian painting, Western collage, and consumer goods: to-go coffee cups, laptops, and shoes, shoes, shoes. "Everything I paint, I own, or wish I owned," says Kim Hyun Jung.
With this mixture of art and commerce, she is the shooting star of Korean art, making it as far as the Metropolitan Museum in New York in January. On Facebook she has a million fans. Now she is showing a selection of her works at the Korean Cultural Center on Leipziger Platz. The exhibition is called "History of a Feigned Innocence."
The title is a reference to the Korean word Naesung, an expression for a Korean particularity. "In my country, politeness is very important," says Kim Hyun Jung. "If, for example, you feel hungry in company, you wouldn't say so, but would eat something later at home."
In the pictures, she reveals what happens when she listens to her stomach. The motif 'I too am a woman' shows her shoveling rice into herself. "I don't want to deliberately provoke, I simply paint the small world in which I live."
She doesn't squeeze herself into the hanbok, the traditional Korean garment, every day, however. "Of course, I sometimes wear jeans too," she says. She spent three hours combing her hair, applying makeup, and dressing before the interview. Beneath the many layers of silk skirts, the 1.60-meter-tall woman has well hidden her high heels.
It's different in her paintings. There, Kim Hyun Jung's legs show through the hanbok skirt. She wants to show that it's worth looking behind the facade. And she also wishes that someday, someone will look behind her own facade. "When I meet the man I want to marry, my paintings will change too."
[Captions]
Heavily laden with bags, having lost a shoe: the painter titles her 2016 shopping scene "Oops!"
The painter calls her portrait series "Feigned Innocence," as with this picture featuring a bicycle wheel
As a burger courier: Kim already painted "Feigned Innocence: You Move Me" in 2013
For three hours, painter Kim Hyun Jung (28) did her makeup, styled her hair, and dressed in traditional Korean style for the BZ interview
PHOTOS: FRANK SENFTLEBEN, © KIM HYUN JUNG ALL RIGHTS RESERVED