Jiyeon Kim - Meme Paintings

About

Due to the easing of restrictions surrounding social distancing, we are excited to announce the new dates for the solo exhibition 'Meme Paintings', by Jiyeon Kim, on view at SomoS from June 9-July 18, 2020.

Jiyeon Kim is a Korean painter based in Berlin, who works primarily to explore ways of representing the individual in our digital era. Most of her works use acrylic paint, and combine elements of abstraction with realism to portray individuals. She is inspired by how human emotions can be depicted in a contemporary way, with a focus on the ways in which our attitudes toward depictions of the face and figure have changed with the rise of technology.

Kim previously completed "City of Singles - Portraits of Tinder," a series of acrylic portraits of people she found on Tinder. Her interest in how we represent ourselves on social media drives her to question whether the photos we post on Tinder, Facebook, and Instagram might be revealing deeper subconscious desires.

In "Meme Paintings," Jiyeon Kim's work graduates from Selfie to Story, moving beyond portraiture to explore new and more complex ideas about the ways in which we interact with the internet, and the stories that we create within our own minds. Taking inspiration from the flood of images and news articles that we are faced with every day, Kim creates collage-style paintings of stacked disparate elements, combined in a single canvas. The paintings are a visual representation of the fragmented pieces of photos and articles that remain in Kim’s mind after browsing the internet, blended with her own memories and thoughts to create a composition that contains both elements of truth and fiction. Through the filter of our own minds, which are presented with endless information every day, stories become distorted and altered. Kim’s work seeks to visually represent this distortion.

The phenomena and state of mind depicted in Jiyeon Kim's "Meme Paintings" have gained currency, as our already technologically focused world finds itself increasingly turning online. As we have been forced to stay inside during the global pandemic, often our only source of contact to the outside world is through our screens. Jiyeon Kim’s solo exhibition deals with feelings of disorientation and stress in regard to our perilous state and how we perceive our reality based on the overflow of media content seen on the internet.

Duration: June 9 - July 18, 2020, Tuesday - Saturday from 2-7pm and by appointment.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Kim completed her BFA at SungKyunKwan University in Seoul, and attended the Innenarchitektur Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaft und Kunst Hildesheim until 2015. She has held three solo exhibitions in Berlin, participated in several group shows in Seoul, Leipzig, and Berlin, and participated in “Art...Essenz 2016”. She was nominated for the EB-Dietzsch-Kunstpreis in 2018.

Find out more about Jiyeon Kim’s work on her homepage:

Visitor Informations:

SomoS is taking precautions to ensure the safety of our patrons and staff, and ask that all visitors to the gallery wear face masks and maintain the recommended distance of 2m. In case you prefer a guaranteed private visit, you can request one through the SomoS website.