Soon-im Kim, Who Ameliorates Art with Profound Attitudes toward Life

Up-and-coming artists of 2008 – (2)

By Dong-kwon Lee

Mal Monthly

Memories become clearer and clearer when recalled. They do not fade or lose their colors even though they are not much overrated. They open warm welcoming grounds for contemplation whether they are about what we have seen or where we have been. Like the status of oblivion, even the most moving story gets to suddenly disappear from your mind forever, if it is not remembered or recalled. Thus the depth of life can vary according to the person’s memory and if someone is fettered by reality, ‘he’ or ‘she’ could float in the air.

Memories can also be stern. Miserable and sad events are much deeply carved into one’s mind and gnaw the everyday life, if they are forced to be thrown away. However, because memories have mentally overwhelming power, they create continuous dialogs for oneself and passionately light up people’s soul which is being paralyzed. And in everyday lives where there is nothing to be proud of and people questions about the existence of happiness, the memories help people not to lose their hopes and to strengthen the grounds for better tomorrow.

Watching Soon-im Kim’s work on which traces of time had neatly alighted, I realized that ‘the past is meaningful just by being remembered.’ From the bloody massacre happened in the foot of Mudeung Mountain  to the parade filled the area of Gwanghwa Moon , cherishing the memory of Hyo-soon and Mi-sun, they all mean ‘sorrows’ for those who remember them, but at the same time, they mean ‘hopes.’

There were various memories piled up in ‘Gallery Dam’ where the quiet atmosphere of the deep forest which had fallen asleep was evident. I was very excited that I could take out all those memories and see. Not only the works showing Kim’s pieces of memories, but also the dreamy atmosphere created by the groups of people visited the gallery, including the audience and reporters, attracted my mind naturally. It was like the feeling that a bent old man who managed to walk into the forest would feel seeing the tree he had planted when he was young grew up and became a huge one.

Everybody is different. And there are people who deeply indulge in their lives more than anybody. It is not because they had much pain in their lives nor they are old enough to have set their minds straight. They observe and feel even small things very carefully and transfer others’ experiences and the origins of joy and sadness to their own lives. Soon-im Kim is one of them. She wants to penetrate into life more precisely than anybody, recall them and ameliorate into art.

“I get to meet many peoples in my life. Among those encounters, there are certain people especially remembered in my mind. I expressed them in my work.”

The source of her work is her retrospection. For example, the piece ‘Boon-sun Ahn’ features an old lady from the picture, which her grandfather kept. ‘Hee-chan Kim’ features her grandfather looking at a jobless bum. Like these, she reenacted all her memories with her grandfather whom she spent her childhood with and learned many things from.

Here work is very minute and prudent. They are delicate like the water flowing under the rock evaporates creating a fog; they are mysterious like the water flowing among trees changes into thin ice being soaked into the snow blocking the road. In fact, the feeling gets more real if we look at her work close by. The pieces, which are made of white cotton wool, thread and cloths, all being entangled, are so full of dignity and respectable that it is hard to touch them.

Soon-im Kim’s pieces are all embroideries. She creates the piece by hand sewing as if she embroiders stitch by stitch. Although it takes a lot of labor and time to create one piece, she says that she “have never thought it is arduous.” It is because the work itself is joy and happiness to her. From her, we could feel the sincerity of an artist who finds life in art and pursues art in life.

Her work can be seen in the exhibition ‘I Meet with Stone’ held in ‘Alternative Space Noon’ from February 26^th, 2008.

Indicating her piece ‘the genius boy,’ she says that “like the air we are blessed with, it will all be disappeared if we do not think, remember, or cherish.”

As an old saying goes, it is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied. I would not stop living thinking and remembering, although they are so much hard and painful. We can find this kind of persistence and endurance in Soon-im Kim. It is why we keep our eyes on her in 2008.

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