Surrealistic Place. The place where a camel and a penguin can have an unprecedented rendezvous. Hyun-Lee Kim has created her own universe called ‘The Animalant’. It is the universe where all the species of animals and plants can live together.  Within the fantastic Animalant, the combination of animals is calm and silent and reveals their presence only, without involving the presence of each other, even within the same space. She thinks the first step to coexistence is to recognize others we share this planet with.

 

Kim portrays all existence including herself within a dream-like scene with the dépaysement technique. Though her work runs from the reenactment of what exists in reality to unrealistic fantasy, one parallel line is ‘coexistence’. Perhaps the message from the works is that we have to understand and respect each other’s differences.

 

Kim uses animals as mediators because she feels that eye contact with animals is easier and more natural than with humans. “Thinking about the people I could not meet by contingency and inevitability makes me calm. Not only the contemporaries but also long-ago deceased and the far-away descendants…” Apple recalls Snow White and Apple Inc. and banana recalls its similarity to human DNA. She chooses objects that can break the boundary between herself and others. Place of coexistence – this virtual reality ultimately handover to human narrative.

 

Education

2013 B.F.A College of FineArt, Korea University in Seoul

 

SOLO EXHIBITION

2015 ‘An Exploration of the Possibility of Coexistence Ⅱ’, Gallery H, Seoul

2014 ‘We are all different but we'd better live together, Cafe The page, Seoul

2013 ‘An Exploration of the Possibility of Coexistence’, Touch Africa, Seoul

 

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2015 Young Artist Power’, Dae-woong Artspace, Seoul

2014 ‘Louvre Art Shopping’, Louvre Museum, 2014, Paris

         ‘Invitation exhibition - Korean young Artist, YOU, WHO?’, Gallery

          Jean, 2014, Seoul

2013 ‘ASYAAF part1’, Seoul station, Seoul

2012 ‘The dreamer's afternoon’, Gallery Sam-chung, Seoul

         ‘ASYAAF part2’, Seoul station, Seoul

2009 ‘Art without dizziness’, Gallery Root, Seoul

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