Education
2002 Graduated from Chung-Ang University, College of Arts, the Dept. of Korean Painting (B.F.A)
2007 Graduated from Graduate School of Chung-Ang University, the Dept. of Korean Painting (M.F.A)
2011 Completed a Doctorate in Fine Art from Dongduk Women's University
Solo Exhibitions
2010 spouting... - Flowers springing up in Human Body - (Gallery Dongduk Art)
2008 No wonder... -A curious story - (Gallery Gate )
2006 A picture of answer (Gallery Kwan-Hoon )
Art Fair
2004 Art Seoul (Seoul Arts Center)
Group Exhibitions
2009 SeogyoSixty 2009 - The Game for Respect (Gallery Sangsangmadang)
2008 Scenery in the body - Invitational Exhibition for Young Artists- (gallery bittteul )
2004 Chung-Ang Korean Painting - Contemplation and Rumination in half a Century (Gallery Sejong)
Best Young Artists - diversity and identity (Gallery Gaia)
Find the rhythm (Gallery window)
2003 Chung-Won Exhibition (Gallery Lamer)
Invitational Exhibition for Excellence graduate Students of Korean Fine Art College (Ansan Danwon Memorial exhibition Hall)
2002 Flexible room ( Graduate School of Chung-Ang University)
Residency Programs
2010 Seoul Art Space Geumcheon
Address: 260-137, Itaewon 2-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, Korea
Phone: 010-2940-2253
E-mail: nuchiok@hanmail.net
Nature Seen through Diagnosis
Park Young-taek(Professor of Kyonggi University / Art Critic)
Eyes of Kim Jung-ok are extraordinary. Is it her eyes or mind? The artist sees a human body in plants. She extracts them. Man and nature became the same creature. They are alike. She is not just drawing what she sees, but sees with diagnosing eyes, meaning she sees nature with the feelings of her body through association and imagination. It is not the eyes but a view through the “body.” Seeing through the body means being in accord and creating an organic association of all the senses of the body and mind with the objects that they perceive. Here, one’s own body, nature, and objects are not separate but become mutually combined. The body and nature are regarded as one. The plant’s vein of the leaf overlaps blood veins, and the internalorgans become intermixed with all kinds of flowering trees. The artist says, the similarities of nature and human are both finite and have desires. The medium that connects this similarity in human and nature is drawings. The artist is regarding each of the organs of an opened body as objects and expresses them in connection with nature.Through this, the artist is shaping an imagery of the ambiguous boundary between the body and nature, and is also expressing the finite life, drive for growth and desire which they both share.
Actually, this kind of law of similarity is the dominant view of thetraditional society. This similarity is affected by similar figures comes from pre-modern art of “epistēmē.”1) Such recognition sees human and natural world having the same properties and not disconnected or separate, meaning it consists the aspect of pantheism and animism. It is interesting to see that the artist’s intention of viewing the world through such similarity viewpoint of overlapping the human body with nature in this contemporary times. This is a post-modernistic view and at the same time it is made possible through a new interpretation of the world view and mind indwelt in our traditional culture and aesthetics. In addition to this, the artist is attentively observing the insignificant objects, trivial and common things around us through not just her eyes but by utilizing her mind’s eye and imagination. Through this, she fathoms the properties and meanings in the mutual living things.
Therefore, the drawings of Kim Jung-ok are an act of viewing the human body through a plant life and again finding the plant life within the human body. Also, through this path between the two existences, the artist is introspecting everything in relation to herself, and is reflecting and confessing the memories of her body.
Our ancestors have always yearned for the properties of a plant as they attempted to neutralize the animal properties of the human body. They have been observing nature and from it they have received repeated knowledge in the workings of life. The womb of the human body is nature and all the actions of the body were adjusted by reflecting on nature as well. The traditional landscape paintings and the four gracious plant paintings are examples of such reasoning expressed in drawings. As a result, man would be turned into even mountains and waters with longing to be trees or plants, and even rocks.
Kim Jung-ok draws bodies that have familiarity with plants. This is possible through a long time work of carefully observing and looking into things. The smooth flowing, sensual, and passionately squirming lines draw the stems and leaf veins, grass and human blood veins and internal organs. These two are mixed together without boundaries. The organs in the body form a natural landscape. Though it is a little grotesque and dreamy, it is a very amusing idea and viewpoint. The feel of Bunchae (type of paint in Asian painting) smoothly pushing its way up and the sensual lines intertwine to shake and vibrate the whole screen. I absolutely love the savor of these lines. Kim Jung-ok’s painting seems to suffice with only the lines themselves than any other parts. The drawing skills accumulated over a long time are creating the existence of the plant life and its stupendous ability to grow and the force to silently devour every surface into an attractive visualization. The colors that moisten and brush over the lines with smooth dryness are what enable this artist’s unique painting that maximizes the savor of the lines.
1) Epistēmē : Typically the word refers to the study of knowledge, and additionally it meant technical knowledge. In particular, in the case where Plato uses this in contrast to doxa in the strictest sense, it meant genuine existence, that is, idea.
