Bumin Kim
Bumin Kim is a Korean-born artist who came to the United States in 2012, earning a masters degree in drawing and painting at the University of North Texas in 2015, where she later taught foundations classes. Kim has exhibited in several solo, juried, and collaborative exhibitions in Texas and her work is included in collections throughout the United States and in Europe. Bumin lives and works in Dallas, Texas, and is represented by Ro2 Art.
Artist Statement: Accumulation
This body of work is a showcase of questions; an approach towards the idea of drawing in the expanded field. Kim explores the nature of line, and the potential held therein, to push the boundaries between the two-dimensional surface and three-dimensional space. Thread and string are synonymous with the actions of weaving and stitching, both for utilitarian purposes, and to serve as metaphor, for the joining of two separate entities with efforts to repair what once was, or with the intent of becoming something other, whole and new.
The transformative power of materiality is at play in these works, and Kim has repurposed the context of thread and string, to emphasize the energy, delicacy, and grace of drawing. Both the weight of line as thin and singular, and the collection of lines en masse as solid form, are sensitive tools found in Kim's repertoire; these are tools which have been exercised with skillful intent to build interesting forms, reminiscent of exacerbated versions of value studies, gesture drawings, or economical sketches one might find in the foundations of drawing. But that would be too reductive to let them exist still tethered to such a basic, albeit important set of concepts.
These works shift, undulate and pulse into our space, promulgating themselves as entities emancipated from the confines of flatland, and now poised, vibrating, just above the surface. Drawing has been personified, and is no longer limited to the index of the hand, or the illusion of the flat surface. It is an echo of a once sorrowful song, whose voice is present, tender, and alive.
-- Bumin Kim, 2016
Artist Statement: Accumulation
This body of work is a showcase of questions; an approach towards the idea of drawing in the expanded field. Kim explores the nature of line, and the potential held therein, to push the boundaries between the two-dimensional surface and three-dimensional space. Thread and string are synonymous with the actions of weaving and stitching, both for utilitarian purposes, and to serve as metaphor, for the joining of two separate entities with efforts to repair what once was, or with the intent of becoming something other, whole and new.
The transformative power of materiality is at play in these works, and Kim has repurposed the context of thread and string, to emphasize the energy, delicacy, and grace of drawing. Both the weight of line as thin and singular, and the collection of lines en masse as solid form, are sensitive tools found in Kim's repertoire; these are tools which have been exercised with skillful intent to build interesting forms, reminiscent of exacerbated versions of value studies, gesture drawings, or economical sketches one might find in the foundations of drawing. But that would be too reductive to let them exist still tethered to such a basic, albeit important set of concepts.
These works shift, undulate and pulse into our space, promulgating themselves as entities emancipated from the confines of flatland, and now poised, vibrating, just above the surface. Drawing has been personified, and is no longer limited to the index of the hand, or the illusion of the flat surface. It is an echo of a once sorrowful song, whose voice is present, tender, and alive.
-- Bumin Kim, 2016
