The Korean Cultural Center Washington, D.C. (KCCDC) proudly presents K-Recollection, a new online group exhibition featuring a diversity of multidisciplinary works by twelve returning Korean artists who reflect on their cultural identity and a year of pandemic life, on view April 23 – July 9. The exhibition will also open with the release of a guided tour video on April 23, including an inside look at the physical exhibition space at the KCCDC and remarks from each of the artists about their work and creative evolution over the past year.
Featuring about 30 works in total ranging from paintings, sculptures, ceramics, and installations to digital video, K-Recollection investigates each artist’s cross-cultural identity while residing in the United States and their ongoing relationship with their Korean heritage. Artists also grapple with fundamental questions about life and social connection in the era of COVID-19, in some cases presenting art created pre-pandemic alongside new works from the past year. The exhibition and artists are further divided into three thematic sections based on stylistic approach and experiences: Assimilation: Cultural Identity, Variation: Tradition and Modernity, and Infinity: Transcendence of Time and Space.
Infinity: Transcendence of Time and Space features works by Tai Hwa Goh, Sky Kim, Jisook Kim, Nara Park, Sui Park, and Nina Cho. Goh creates surreal three-dimensional landscapes with her installation art by superimposing vibrantly colored paper, patterned using traditional printmaking techniques. Sky Kim's watercolor paintings evoke the essence of life with the natural connection of countless organic points and lines. Jisook Kim’s incorporation of installation and drawing illustrates the coexistence of life, energy, and time through repetitive, harmonious lines. Nara Park’s sculptures investigate the relationship between the environment and the individual through the traces that are left behind. Sui Park creates uncannily biological forms in her installations, brought to life by weaving together disposal industrial materials into cell-like structures. Nina Cho’s functional art objects focus on substance and exhibit moderation and balance inspired by the beauty of negative space, a key Korean aesthetic concept.
Nara Park
Nara Park was born in Korea and received her BFA in Fine Arts and her MFA in Sculpture from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Park is a recipient of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Fellowship from 2018 until 2021. Her work has been seen in numerous exhibitions and is included in the collection of the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.
Park explores the relationship between one’s current environment and the traces that we leave behind after death. By utilizing industrial materials and breaking the boundaries between sculpture and installation, she questions the meaning of presence or absence of life and authenticity and invites viewers to look beyond the surface.
Nara Park
Mediation I (edition 1 of 5)
3D-printed Nylon, 9.5 x 3.75 x 3.75 in, 2020
Mediation II (edition 1 of 5)
3D-printed Nylon, 9.5 x 3.75 x 3.75 in, 2020
Sui Park
Sui Park was born in Korea and received her MFA and BFA in Fiber Arts at Ewha Womans University in Korea. After moving to the United States, she received her BFA in Environmental Design from the Maryland Institute College of Art and MDes in Interior Architecture at Rhode Island School of Design. She has participated in numerous exhibitions and received the Excellence Award during the 5th Textile Art of Today at Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum in the Slovak Republic. Her work is included in the collection of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Oregon and recently she was selected as one of two commissioned artists for the 2021 Site-Responsive Art Biennale at I-Park Foundation.
Park creates organic and biological shapes by weaving together disposable, inexpensive, mass-produced industrial materials such as cable ties. Her three-dimensional forms are connected to the idea of rebirth as a valuable creature, reflecting human life that pursues balance and harmony together.
Sui Park
Loop
Black Cable Ties, 5 ft x 4.5 ft x 4.5 ft (H), 2020
Foam
Cable Ties, Monofilament, Panels, Acrylic Paint, 24” x 24” x 2 pcs, 2021
Nina Cho
Nina Cho was born in the United States and received her BFA in Woodworking and Furniture design at Hong-Ik University in Korea. She then moved to the United States and received her MFA in 3D Design at Cranbrook Academy of Art. She was featured as one of Five Breakout Designers of 2015 in Artsy and was nominated for the Pure Talents Contest at Imm Cologne in 2016, and later received the 6th Annual American Design Honors by Wanted Design presented with Bernhardt Design in 2020.
Cho seeks out Eastern moderation and simplicity and creates a balance and harmonization among objects, space, and people. Based on the traditional Korean aesthetic of emptiness, she presents functional objects by avoiding unnecessary elements and giving a meaning to negative space.
Nina Cho
Maung Maung (망망) Mirror Series
Tinted Glass Mirror, W 13 D 30 H 0.75 in / W 33 D 30 H 0.75 in, 2019
Constructivist Mirror Series
Black acrylic, bronze acrylic mirror, gold acrylic mirror, copper, ebonized wood, W 17 D 23 H 0.75 in / W 17.5 D 25.5 H 0.75 in / W 17 D 17 H 0.75 in, 2014
Jisook Kim
Jisook Kim was born in Korea and received her BFA and MFA in Sculpture from Sungshin Woman's University in Korea. She completed residency programs at ARPNY and the 4heads Artist in Residence Program, and was selected for Diamond District Windows by ChaShaMa and the Governor’s Island Art Fair in 2018. She has participated in numerous exhibitions in New York and New Jersey.
Jisook Kim conveys a delicate coexistence of life, energy, and time in her artwork, using a marbling technique that embeds variating drawn lines throughout her multidimensional installations. These abstract and simplified patterns reflect the energy of the natural world in an artificial yet organic shape, existing in an ambiguous state just like the boundaries between reality and our ideals, or human life and the wider universe.
Jisook Kim
Built Emotions
Mixed Media, Variable installation, 2019
Microcosm
Mixed Media, 8(W)X12(H)X7(D)in, 2020
Constellation
Mixed Media, 5x9 in (6 pieces), 2020
Tai Hwa Goh
Tai Hwa Goh was born in Korea and received her BFA and MFA in printmaking at Seoul National University in Korea. She later moved to the United States and received her MFA in printmaking and sculpture at the University of Maryland. She has participated in numerous exhibitions and residency programs including at the Children's Museum of Manhattan, Museum of Arts and Design in New York, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, and Vermont Studio Center. She was awarded AHL-T&W Foundation Contemporary Visual Art Award in 2017.
Goh explores objects and installations with a sense of tension by contrasting opposites and creating layers of relationships. Her three-dimensional overlapping paper material, made using traditional printmaking techniques and intense colors and patterns, creates a surreal landscape and suggests the new possibilities of contemporary printmaking.
Tai Hwa Goh
Suspicious Growth
Mixed media prints on hand- waxed paper, card board, Size variable, 2017
Trans-Plant (18s03)
Screen printing on Pelon, Steel pipes, plastics & cement cast, 26x13x13 in, 2018
Sky Kim
Sky Kim was born in Korea and received her MFA in painting at the Pratt Institute in New York. She is a recipient of the National Korean Art Competition Awards, a Pratt Institute Art Grant and Jersey City Art Council Grant. She has participated in numerous exhibitions abroad including in the United States, UK, Denmark, UK, Mexico, Germany, Canada, and Australia and her work has received international critical acclaim in The Wall Street International, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Juxtapoz Magazine, Artlog, Artefuse and Arts Observer, and on WMBC-TV.
Kim captures the flowing, constantly evolving energy of living organisms at the microscopic level in her meticulous watercolor art. The innumerable points and lines in her work often connect and constitute the form of a circle, conveying a sense of cyclical spirituality—unending birth and rebirth, life, and death.
Sky Kim
Untitled (Micro Universe Series)
Watercolor on Paper, 59 x 59 in, 2020
Untitled (Minimal Sensualism Series)
Watercolor on Paper,40 x 40 in, 2018