Imagination within plane surface

Young-Taek Park (Art critic, Prf. of Kyungki University)

Hana Kim attempts to describe images inspired from residues of memory, fleeting moments and traces remaining throughout life, response to the experiences in reality. In wide use, all paintings can be interpreted abstract art based on reality. Hana Kim’s paintings form into diverse lines to explain and depict the inspirations. Her paintings seem to contain her confession of repression defeated by reality - like keeping a diary. To Hana Kim, art and painting works are rumination and recreation of the memories in her life. In other words, these are a series of projects to create particular forms by catching strands of thoughts which are interfered and overlapped in the present and tracking the evoked emotions from the thoughts. Dealing with combined individual ideas that come across her mind, she is directing a certain circumstance and making a story. The artist tries to set a scene that can perceive emotionally. Expressed somewhat obscure, the scene looks quite surrealistic and dreamlike. However, this embodies the artist’s impression of reality and life. Reality lies between concreteness and abstraction, existence and vision, consciousness and unconsciousness.

Art, according to Hana Kim, means giving a room for imagination within plane surface. The picture plane is the place to generate her vision, unconsciousness and trauma to be allowed. The plane turns into bizarre space; this space makes new world - which is contrary to reality - come true, brings her ego and variety of thoughts to life The artist wants more challenges to flat picture planes and attempts to stimulate her senses by paintings. Painting means to her is arousing emotions that she hasn’t felt, representing internal and external thoughts in her own way and showing variety of thoughts with hidden messages. In consequence, painting represents the return of repression in reality and desires unable to actualise in specific daily life. Sleepers lying in an uncomfortable position and unknown weird place being featured in, her works can be categorized in figurative art with aspects of Surrealism and motion graphics. The paintings consist of layers of sharp sensitive lines having fluidity, fantastic colours, and surrealistic settings. Yet the settings still remain a task to give more tension and strength in formative way.

Canvas is composed of numerous thin lines with repetition and overlap in acrylics. These enlivening, slender fine lines occupy the pictures and attempt to express various feelings. Strikingly detected delicate lines are visualising space: hair-like flutter merging into forms, sustaining insecurity from sharp-edged acuity, transforming multiple wavering into messes of tangles, adding savour to layers of background in watercolor technique, giving heaviness to solid object, having an aura of freedom through contents. In short, engaging with the role as mentioned above, the lines produce fresh mood in the faintly described picture plane. The depicted scenery reminds of a vast, quiet and lonely place in nature. It can be an imaginary place the artist has created, or a specific place she has hoped to visit, or nowhere (Utopia). A person is sleeping in nature, an odd and breath-taking place where the painter created with imagination. This tiny human being is located in wide, open space. Surrounded by ominous desolate atmosphere, the person is having a sleep, being sandwiched between thin small shapes. The scene shows an uncomfortably sleeping person in an unstable, insecure place; this is a story about desperate people who are searching for a new place to rest and dream. The recognition and the reflections on her situation in life contain in the scene. Although dreaming Utopia in desolate and insecure state of mind, seeking places with desire for rest and travel, we can’t help coming back to severe reality with empty hands. This is metaphor and inner-portrait of ordinary people living in reality. As she mentioned, each painting has a story about most of the people today who can’t rest anywhere, even during sleep.

Artists may be kinds of people struggling with illusions. They don’t take things and world at face value with a narrow view fixed in the present. They face the world with a view beyond time and space and penetrate the present and memory by bouncing back and forth between consciousness and unconsciousness. Hana Kim’s works exist in so called link system made of discontinuous images. A mixture of strange scenery and images implying individuals in odd situations who are separated from the scenery builds a certain relationship, connects each other - then creates another new world fantastically.