Crafted through doodling and cartoon abstraction, Hee Jyung Kim’s ‘A Missing Chatter’ creates personified space aware of invisible undercurrents.
In the first three months of work Coups Contemporary gave us two cutting edge shows marking a great start of an exquisite line-up of London based and international artists. As we are sure we'll find ourselves writing again for Coups Contemporary, today we will analyse Hee Jyung Kim’s first London solo, ‘A Missing Chatter’. Being the last exhibition of 2022 for the gallery, Hee Jyung Kim creates an in-situ drawing installation, covering the walls with a series of visual whispers, mapping the countless stories that reflect the essence and hustle of a life that takes place beyond the gallery walls.
A room full of scribbles carefully curated to echo the architecture of the room, a topographic mind map that exists within the whirlwind of Fitzrovia’s everyday life. Entering the space, you come across walls covered in graffiti like scribbles of speech bubbles, brick walls and abstract idle doodles - the pure expressive output of the artist's subconscious. However, a more careful look reveals frottage details from the area's landmark plaques, wall motifs and manhole covers as well as coordinates identifying the exact place of its rubbing. This is just the background. In the forefront, an entangled figure tries to escape from the aforementioned organised chaos through a dominant fluorescent pink form. The same composition lies at the far end of the gallery’s wall, with traces of scribbles expanding in between where more pink cutout collages pose like entities making it unsure whether these compositions serve as means of escape or they are black (pink) holes ready to suck you into the artist's unconscious. The linear diagram of the windows in the opposite wall seconds this theory: does she want to create more exits or continue the myth of her labyrinth?
Hee Jyung Kim’s installation takes the medium of drawing to a different level expanding from the classic 2D set up, creating an immersive experience by only using ‘pen and paper’. She delves into abstract depictions of self and current environments where each current in situ installation overlooks the essence of each place exhibited. Innovative installations pushing the boundaries of drawing creating a psychograph of Great Portland Street. She looks for the secrets of each area, secret numbers, codes and patterns searching trying to create a relationship between space and self where she results in creating a capsule of a moment in time filtered by her unique aesthetic. On a first glance Kim seems to forge whimsical illustrations of chaos, however on a second read, it is all about identity through the current occurrences symbolising the everlasting duality of London life where the diverse, lustre skyline exists side-by-side with cruel big city life solitude.
‘If I don't say anything all day, the drawing is better. It's strange.’
Quoting the gallery’s press release ‘In passing life Kim finds darkness in the barriers she faces through language. Drawing becomes a cathartic process she describes as vomiting or shouting onto the paper’ And we cannot agree more that this loud voice is an omnipresent zeitgeist that needs to be addressed in today's full on extravaganza London’s ever sprouting galleries.
A show that made a difference and an artist to keep an eye on!
Hee Jyung Kim is a South Korean artist living and working in London. She completed her MA in Painting at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL in 2021. Her work has featured in recent solo exhibitions at Hongcheon Museum, South Korea (2022); and Space 9, South Korea (2021). Recent selected group exhibitions include: Air Gallery, Manchester (2022), D-Contemporary, London (2022) and Saatchi Gallery, London (2021).
Make sure not to miss Coups Contemporary new solo show ‘Sleep/ No Sleep’, an immersive installation by Elliot Jeffries.
More info here >> https://www.coupscontemporary.com/sleepno-sleep
