Ilhwa Kim: Artist Spotlight

The material interplay of seeds on my canvas creates a peculiar life presence, usually associated with a kind of biological life still growing.  The curious interplay between the material half and the biological half begins to create a curious zone in front of the work surfaces. Not only the physical surfaces of the work seem growing slowly, but also all the sensory units surrounding the work become palpable. This active space stimulates our hands, feet, mouth, nose, ears and eyes. “It has a synesthetic quality that gives it great sensuality—it makes looking equivalent to touching. “

This peculiar presence comes from the "biological liveness", "velocity", and its "growing up" quality of the work, associated with the living plants or animals.  It must be our instinctive survival sensors which discerned a few specific qualities, originally belonging to biological life, from the material relief I made.

(“As for the Cezanne [Bather], it has a synesthetic quality that gives it great sensuality—it makes looking equivalent to touching. “ –Jasper Jones)