Layers of Memory and Color on Cultural Dualities: The Artistic Landscapes from Tae Rim Kim
Interview By Sooa Lim​​
1. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your background as an artist?
I am from Korea, Seoul. I graduated BFA from Kyonggi University in Kwanggyo, Korea and a currently MFA student at School of Visual arts in New York. Growing up with my dad KIM SONG WHAN, a lifetime artist, I was always intrigued by the endless colors and his works stacked in his studio. Also, influenced by that, I used to like drawing and painting by depicting illustrated animal books when I was a kid. Technically, I had a hard time in the middle school due to my direction of whether to do art or not. Even though I definitely know it is tough direction, I decided to get into art world, which I gravitated toward.​
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2. What themes or messages do you aim to convey through your art?
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My paintings explore the fleeting essence of "Geumho San," the Seoul slums in South Korea where I grew up, which now linger as ephemeral landscapes in collective memory. These places, created amidst the struggles post-Korean War and Japan's departure in 1945, are a testament to the yearning for a brighter future. Through oil paints, I render the tactile quality of these memories, with complex structures now blurred and colors muted by the passage of time. With a raw immediacy and tenderness, I loose brushstrokes to create instability of my retrospect and build up geometry shapes of flat plane that come out to me intensive. Also, lump and thick of oil is a few examples to capture snapshots of a reality and recollection. This process transforms the landscape into a canvas of abstracted chaos, prompting viewers to interpret involving imagery of my personal recollections.
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3. How do you approach a new artwork, from concept to completion?
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I don’t usually have plans in my paintings. Furthermore, I don’t know of completion while my paintings are in progress. I start my paintings from my picture going back to the places where my memories were. As the places are not remembered as a specific structure, their inexplicable qualities are not revealed in real words, yet visual vocabulary. Therefore, I preoccupy how to express visual vocabulary depending on my perspective. If I capture my visual vocabulary in the progress, I regard it is completion. Also, when I pick up the picture, I usually think about color field, composition of landscape, and drawing elements according to canvas size.
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4. What inspires your artwork, and how does your environment influence your creative process?
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At this point, I would like to talk about slums where I was raised in Korea. The slum called “Geumho san” is a place so impoverished and soon to disappear in our society, where the locals were constantly forced and threatened by today’s society to give up their land and homes. However, this poverty-stricken town where others saw adversity and hardship, was my beloved home and playground; A place where I saw a silver lining. To represent, question, manifest, and re-define our world’s concept of true beauty as well as to console the alienated, stereotyped, and forgotten, my home, inspired me to paint.
5. What challenges have you faced as an artist, and how have you overcome them?
There are lots of challenges in artists way. Artists have different challenges depending on what they make and their lifetime. In my opinion, first of all, if they don’t know about the progressive direction of their artworks, they are lost as they don’t know how to deal with finish. It is required with consistent training. In addition, in the progress, they need creativity in terms of expression, material, and shape, etc. Also, when it comes to these elements, they should think about cannon and lineage in contemporary art. I am still under discussion about these creativities. I think they can cover it by art history.
6. Does your identity as an Asian inform your art, or do you think it's irrelevant?
I think I have been changing from identity as an Asian to being irrelevant. The place I have painted is from Asia, the specific old place where Korea has only. However, since I have been studying in New York, it turns out old places are surrounded not only Korea but also anywhere. Also, I have had culture conflict between Korea and New York. Although my paintings are based on background of Korea, my rendering of expression is from western art history. My paintings lie at the intersection of abstraction and realism by extracting indeterminate forms generated by dots, lines, and faces in describing the old place as it is, where to be considered as worthlessness for aesthetic, invoking Geumho San's textures and the emotional remnants of my memories.
7. Can you describe your daily routine as an artist? What practices or habits are essential to your creative process?
I don’t have daily routine. I am usually in my studio and I usually work out to build up my physical strength not to be exhausted when I paint. Getting enough rest is important for me to concentrate on my works next day. Also, I often read art books to learn other’s perspective. There is a time when I get stressed in making art. Then I hang out and go to galleries to get inspired. Speaking of going to galleries, it plays an important role in broadening my view. I can get opportunities easily by checking other artists visual language.
8. What upcoming artworks, projects, or exhibitions are you currently working on?
I have been in New York for one year and when I feel get used to being here, I feel like I have to find the connections between New York and Seoul. Hence, I got questions by myself like What do Iook at? What am I mindful for here? What makes you impact in terms of your collections? And at some point, I used to useless to just stay and paint in my studio. So, I went to Brooklyn, Bronx, and Queens and Harlem. I tried to search what I gravitate toward. And it turns out, it was the surface of the wall. I have had transition from figurative abstraction with to monochrome abstraction with physical material. It is great challenge for me and experiments like mixing this and that, for me, is great trial.
Chief Editor Paris Koh