Ashin Kim's solo exhibition at Gallery STAN in Seoul.
ASHIN KIM: CITY
July 12 – August 04, 2024
Gallery Stan, Seoul
Ashin Kim attempts to find his own paradise. Why is he searching for his paradise? The paradise he envisions is not a perfect place where all pain and sorrow are eliminated, just as light and darkness cannot be separated. It is a place where all things struggle yet coexist, feeling happiness and unhappiness simultaneously. Here, paradise is not merely a dream of pursuing beauty but is ultimately similar to living life. The reason he seeks his own paradise may be his desire to continue living as himself. He believes that breaking away from conventional views, understanding his multifaceted self. And maintaining his ideal form is akin to possessing his own paradise.
In this exhibition, he observes the relationship between the individual, who is the subject of life, and the environment, then conceptualizes the inner beings created within this relationship as citizens in a virtual city. Human, non-human, and intangible symbols on the screen break down their boundaries and appear as individual citizens, recorded within the city as entities with distinct and complex rights and meanings. These entities recognize each other and attempt to coexist. This process involves reading his system through the objects that constitute the virtual city, and based on this, expressing his life and seeking to achieve balance through inner understanding.
Ashin Kim (b.1997 in South Korea)
Having experienced the Paris terror attacks in 2015, Ashin Kim turned to painting full-time as an expression of anger and inner conflict. Through considering the different emotions that each person experiences in life, the work addresses the process of emotional fluctuation. It is his body of work that gradually refines the inner anger and obsession seen in his early works into emptiness and recognition.Through art, the young artist gathers people's narratives and expresses their emotions and thoughts. As a result, a selected person or object becomes the main subject.
The contemporary layout, layering, and difference in depth of field are used as dramatic compositional devices. It induces the audience to construct various interpretations through the dual gaze of utopia and cynicism. The artist also captures scenes and objects around him and uses airbrushing and masking tape techniques to precisely depict and deliberately omit them from his work. In this way, the work emphasizes to the audience the empirical approach to its theme.
Since the first solo exhibition in New York, the artist has been active both domestically and internationally. As time passes by, he gives extensions to individual works, expressing the journey of life through his art. The artist hopes to help people deal with the conflict between the outside world and their own inner world through his work.
