Life Is There

We see the back of a child dressed in a pink coat standing as she is facing a trail across a shallow frozen stream that leads up a hill yonder with snow patches. On this side of the bank, two more children, also showing their backs, are facing the child in pink. Similar to a snapshot photo, this is entitled, 'Season of the Quiet Forest.'

The landscapes by artist Kim Hyun Jung are simple and without panache. Slightly lonely, sentimental, or even anxious at times, her pieces initially attract attention via the detailed, realistic, and sometimes photographic outer layer. Seen from afar, on a computer screen or mobile device, her works of art blur the line between painting and photography, prompting the viewer to ask a most mundane question of "If it's going to be photographic, why not just take a photo?" This question becomes even more prompting if the paintings themselves were based upon photographs as opposed to real life objects. 

Nevertheless, such questions are appropriately answered when the viewer approaches the painting, as Kim Hyun Jung¡'s most detailed and picturesque shapes emerge with closer inspection. Whether it is the emotional flow of blue and purple that fill the left side of the canvas in "Morning from Afar," the slightly unrealistic and sentimental color combination of ¡°Follow the Sound of Breathing,¡± or the flatness of the azure lamppost cover in ¡°Forest for a Song,¡± the initial impression of being photographic fades away, only to be replaced by admiration toward the brushstrokes and intriguing emotional resonance. How would one describe this resonance? Plus, the initial question still remains of why one would bother painting something in extreme photographic detail? 

Film theorist André Bazin offered the following insight into the influence of photography on paintings. Many during his time have hypothesized that the emergence of photography would threaten the sustainability of paintings, but according to Bazin photography actually presented paintings with an important realization: when one compares a painting with a photo of the same object, it is not the reproduction nor level of details of a photo that surprised artists but their self-realization that simple reproduction of an object on canvas had never really been the artist¡¯s work to begin with.

For so long, western painters have thought of their work as the ¡°reproduction¡± of an ¡°object,¡± often shackled by the concept of art being an imitative reproduction of real life objects. Ironically, it was the artists¡¯ reading of photographs, reproducing objects better than any other medium, which freed them from this fixed idea. It was never the lack of technique that made painted representations of objects different from those of photography. It was more the fact that the human eye is different from that of a mechanical lens on one hand, but more importantly that what artists wished to represent on canvas was much less objectivity seen through the ¡°unfiltered eye¡± of the camera lens but more the impression of an object that became imprinted in the artist¡¯s mind. This realization led to expressionism, symbolism, and eventually abstraction in art, but for those who painted photorealistic art it has been a long time coming for them to be counted in the same impressionistic vein as those movements. Even now, many persons unfortunately misunderstand ¡°hyperrealism¡± paintings to be mere ¡°reproductions¡± of objects and fathom its worth through comparison with photography. 

For the uninvolved viewer, hyperrealism may seem not so far removed from the traditional objective of paintings being a reproduction of objects, thus believing the artists to be seeking to reach the same level of detail in their paintings as that of photography. Hence, the response, ¡°Why not just take a photo?¡± Nevertheless, for Kim Hyun Jung, her photorealism has its objectives elsewhere. 

It is interesting to note how Kim Hyun Jung began painting landscapes back in 2007. Ruminating upon a peculiar stain found on a staircase, her eyes and mind realized how objects might have cognitive and emotional power that transcends its objective existence. In other words, it was the discovery of space between objective existence and subjective presence. Naturally as an artist, her interest was in the subjective presence side of things. She concentrated on how the outer reality, as perceived by sensory organs, filter through the inner mechanisms—whether it is cognition or emotion—and transform into a different inner reality. Thus she started painting, based upon photographs taken. 

"Life in reality is unclear and ambiguous, but the sceneries that incite strong emotions within myself seem more real and truer than the world I live in. I paint to capture such sceneries and transform them into most realistic miracles in my unrealistic life."

As such, her landscapes are all part of moments that helped blossom her otherwise caged senses. Even as her landscapes may seem plain to the eyes of a viewer, they were very special scenes and moments to the artist. Whenever the trivial daily events take on a new subjective presence for some unknown reason, Kim Hyun Jung captures the moment with a photograph. For example, when the empty and dreary stable at a zoo overlaps with space where humans reside, it becomes a landscape with poetic resonance beyond mere space. Thus, for Kim Hyun Jung, photographs are the supplementary mechanism for preserving the experience of special moments while also becoming the control by which the outer and inner realities can be contrasted. The processed photograph shows the objective existence of a landscape but cannot show the subjective presence, as it contains within an overload of visual elements while falling short of emotional elements. Hence, the photograph is the rough sketch upon which the oversaturation of visual images must be reduced, while the painting process is one where emotions are filled in, transforming the landscape into a place that is no longer the place represented in the initial photograph. 

If the painting is no longer the place in the photo, why does Kim Hyun Jung paint with such photorealism? To answer this question, we should first ask her definition of a painting:

"Paintings to me are an attitude by which the world is observed for its purity, detail, and complexity."

Paintings, to her, are a method of symbolizing the self-identity first, and self-expression second. In other words, it is a process by which the artist observes, feels, and understands the world alongside its inner components and accepts them into her life. As a process, the world comes first, followed by experiencing the world, then the painting. If she were able to merely ¡°observe¡± the world with an ¡°eye of purity,¡± then the end result would approximate that of a photograph. This is why she uses photos as the basis for her paintings as well as the explanation of why her paintings seem like photography. The irony here is that the photograph shows that the human eye can never be so pure. The human eye cannot acknowledge everything a visual image shows as a camera lens could. There are economic limitations and emotional perspectives, affected by memory and subjective imagination that allows the human eye to only selectively accept information, creating in the artist¡¯s mind symbolism that is both the same but different from a photographed image. This, of course, is different from other radical transformations of expression, symbolism, and abstraction that other artistic works go through. Here, the difference between the symbolic image in the artist¡¯s mind and actual landscape is very subtle and complex, observable more in its parts than as a whole. The difference can often only be observed only when throwing an extremely detailed comparative fishnet over both the symbolic image in the mind as well as the photograph.

The interesting thing about the above-mentioned fishnet is that it can easily morph into weaved textile. Perhaps Kim Hyun Jung¡¯s method of painting could be compared to textile weaving. Because the objective of her painting is not to duplicate the outer reality of a landscape, her brushstrokes show obsessive attention to detail. In order to incrementally weaving her piece, she fills the holes left behind by the photograph with what she perceives to be her inner reality. She endlessly repeats a process of closely approaching and distancing her eyes from the canvas, often using brushstrokes so small it seems she is pawing in mid air. The resulting piece that took several months to complete thus becomes an image of her reality. Such is the long and arduous process by which she confronts the world, accepts the world, and carves herself a niche into this world again. The process is one where coincidence and necessity alternates alongside sensibility, cognition, and emotion; and one where the process cannot be expedited but incrementally built in steps. Hence, the process becomes layers of Kim Hyun Jung¡¯s life itself, and the process ends up being just as important as the final result. It¡¯s no wonder that she compares her intense painting process to 'dating'.

It is within this difficult process of outer and inner reality overlapping and colliding with one another that the space between objective existence and subjective presence is found. While reconciling the difference in detailed patterns between that of the photograph and image as recorded by the mind and eyes, brushstrokes that decide whether to add or subtract, and layering translucent colors upon each other, Kim Hyun Jung is also faced with special emotional objects within her paintings that can be neither easily nor conveniently handled. When certain objects give off a special emotive aura, the artist abandons her basic realism-style of painting in favor of a very different style to have those objects stand out. Sometimes this is done by sculpting color faces, dripping paint, or by using colors that seem unrealistic. The resulting heterogeneity of these subjects strongly draw the attention of the viewer, while also making the otherwise photorealistic painting transcend above mere photography. Such objects are probably those that express the core of the artist¡¯s inner reality—those that the camera or fleeting eye cannot capture. 

This process of the artist completing the symbolic representation of her inner reality is affected by not only the artist¡¯s emotions but also is intervened by her formative sensibilities. It is only through this filter of subjectivity that the piece becomes complete as a Persian carpet. That carpet has weaved within itself the limitations of the human eye, memories, and emotions, but also the formative imagination of the artist. In this vein, perhaps Kim Hyun Jung¡¯s work of art can be characterized as those of "emotional realism." 

Kim Hyun Jung¡¯s recreation of her own sensibilities on canvas has resulted in the most obvious effect of 

Behind the appeal of Kim Hyun Jung¡¯s works of art lies less the realism of landscape that is aided by her immaculate techniques but more the emotion that the landscape bleeds through. Such is a natural result of her recreations masked with her own emotions. Of course, it would be near impossible for viewers to realize the patterns of the artist¡¯s inner symbolism to its full extent, but her excellent sense of color and clever brushstrokes seem successful in conveying a large portion of her emotions. When we as viewers are able to sense those emotions even the slightest bit, we realize that her paintings are never mere redundant reproductions of reality but that there is much more to be felt from them. 

The moment I first saw her past work entitled, "Longing Shines Brighter Than Memories", it immediately brought to mind a short story in Kim Yeon-Soo¡¯s collection of novellas "When I Was Still a Child." In particular, it reminded me of the warm sunlight I imagined in the last scene, alongside my own memories of playing happily in the sun as a child. Surprisingly, Kim Hyun Jung¡¯s painting was of an actual farm close to my home where I spent much time in my childhood. Whether the medium is words or pictures, a single ray of sunlight is able to unlock the doors to our memories and conjure the place over there to here and allow us to bask in its magical effects. 

As such, Kim Hyun Jung¡¯s works of art have an effect of bring there to here. Conversely, it also allows viewers here to visit there beyond the reality of our senses. Finding reality hidden within reality, and allowing for special new encounters with our world and us is what her works trigger and help light fire to our perceptions. 

It is not coincidence that the word ¡°aura¡± often appears in the reviews of Kim Hyun Jung¡¯s works. Aura is halo that envelops our lives. Only when the pieces of our lives, that would otherwise dissipate and drift away from us, can be saved, and the past, present, and future may be threaded as one, can the aura of our lives benefit and transcend with splendid aura. 

Interestingly, Kim Hyun Jung¡¯s current exhibition is entitled ¡°There is no there there,¡± a borrowed title from Gertrude Stein¡¯s poem that expresses the sense of loss when Stein revisited as an adult her childhood home of Oakland. However, the lonely impressions of the Oakland in her memories no longer in Oakland is more comparable to Pi Cheon-Deuk¡¯s ¡°Ties¡± rather than the sensibility of Kim Hyun Jung¡¯s works of art. 

Nevertheless, the diverging sensibilities all speak in unison. The ¡°there¡± that we all hold so dear to ourselves can only be preserved in the ¡°there¡± of our memories, and that the beauty of the moment can be reclaimed not in our own reality but within our symbolism, our recreation, our writings, and our paintings. Thus Kim Hyun Jung¡¯s paintings bring us a splendid kind of beauty over the regretful beauty felt over ¡°there¡±—just as a ray of sunlight would soon shine upon the white snow, as we transition from late autumn to winter.

Su Kyung Chung (Aesthetician/ Critic)