Heesoo Kim’s newest solo exhibition with Unit portrays the common feelings of a selected second in time. In Regular Life, the artist conveys the ideas and emotions of these round him, utilizing his personal singular perspective to visualise our shared anxieties. Exemplifying what Kim calls ‘impartial expression’, the exhibition distils the expertise of standing quietly subsequent to a stranger, observing them just for a second earlier than transferring on.
Capturing these fleeting experiences, Kim’s portraits attempt to disclose our hidden feelings, tapping into the elements of ourselves that we attempt to not present the world. Demonstrating a shift within the artist’s follow in the direction of group portraits and sculpture, Regular Life doesn’t solely take into account our relationship to our personal feelings however explores our connection to society and its modifications extra broadly.
Kim’s lifelong fascination with portraiture stems from his previous profession in images, reflecting a motivation to arrest ephemerality. Nonetheless, the figures in Kim’s work stay intentionally obscure. Devoid of idiosyncrasies, these individuals may very well be anybody. For Kim, ‘impassive characters’ mirror the hidden facet of recent society, turning into projections of the tougher ideas and emotions that we attempt to push away. The artist is especially within the singular nervousness that has grown from our quickly creating technological age.
Whereas we concurrently expose and masks our true selves on-line, we retreat from the bodily world to digital spheres. This sense of isolation is mirrored in Kim’s portraits through which figures both seem alone or are offered along with minimal interplay.
In lots of work, figures in sombre clothes seem subsequent to sepia counterparts. Maybe these monochrome individuals replicate the inner wrestle between inward and outward emotion, turning into visualisations of the ideas and emotions we attempt to repress. Kim observes that many people don’t present our unhappiness or nervousness, hiding these destructive emotions from wider society. As such, these monochrome figures appear to convey the protecting psychological shields with which we encompass ourselves.
The sculptures, new to the artist’s follow, additionally reveal what Kim defines because the ‘veiled story’ that lives inside us all. These sculptures even seem within the work themselves. In a single picture, a determine is about to hurl a sculpted bust throughout the image aircraft, maybe alluding to an elevated resistance to sincere emotion.
These concepts ultimately give strategy to a extra constructive outlook. In Kim’s most well-liked portray of the exhibition, Untitled (Belief), a determine falls by mid-air, seemingly reaching out for help. One other determine, a later addition by the artist, seems on the backside of the body with arms outstretched to brace the autumn. Kim hints at concepts of companionship, reminding us that we’re not all the time alone. Ultimately, the artist insists that these works are by no means primarily based on absolutely fashioned ideas. Somewhat, Regular Life displays the vacillations of his expertise and the inner monologue that weaves by his thoughts each day.