Bora Kim


Pearl Room,1999
Installation,
(overview with viewer)
10' x 8' x 10'
Pearl Room,
detail,1999
(view through peephole)
10' x 8' x 10'
Pearl Room,detail,1999
(view through peephole)
10' x 8' x 10'
Pearl Room,detail,1999
(view through peephole)
10' x 8' x 10'

click the images above to view artist's work

Over the last few years my work has moved further and further away from the traditional sense of painting as illusionistic surface toward the architecture and spatial postures which support that tradition: walls, ceilings, floors and the coordinates structured by the movement of the viewer through both real and imaginary space. Through the use of both common industrial or domestic materials and fabric not usually associated with art, I hope to create a fantastic world which expands the viewer's sense of painterly abstraction to include an irony and whimsy which undermines their sense of "real" in everyday life.

In my installations, I use walls as both the barrier to perception and a communicative mediator between the real and the imaginary. What first appears as walls that are part of the architecture of the site gives way, through a series of carefully cropped peepholes and lenses, to an imaginary space. Viewers are often confused by the various sight lines as to whether the interior space is a two or three dimensional space, as well as whether it exists in a "real" scale, as a miniature, or as a photograph.

My aim is to engage the viewer in a way that requires deliberation, reflection, as well as physical participation and away from art which functions merely as decor or entertainment in a passing "quick read". The goal is ultimately to provide the viewer with a challenge to their sense of perceptual predictability in prosaic sight and to open the possibility of a wider and more complex conception of both the social world and private life.

Bora Kim, 2000


Bora Kim
233 Saint Marks Ave. #3
Brooklyn, NY 11238
(718) 623-1705
email:boraborakim@hotmail.com

Education
1999 The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, M.F.A. Painting/Drawing, IL
1998 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, ME
1996 Maryland Institute, College of Art, B.F.A., MD

Selected Exhibitions
2000 The Third Dimension,Pelham Art Center, Pelham, NY

End of the Rainbow, Gwenda Jay/Addington Gallery, Chicago, IL

Round 12 of Artist Installations, Project Row Houses, Houston, TX

Growing into Space, Silverstein Gallery, New York, NY

1999 An exhibition of recent MFA's from SAIC,Herndon Gallery, Antioch College, OH

Whippersnapper,Vedanta Gallery, Chicago, IL

MFA Thesis Show,The school of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1996 BFA Show,Maryland Institute Decker Gallery, MD

Selected Awards
1999 Edward L. Ryerson Fellowship, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Sara Lee Foundation Fellowship

1998 Skowhegan Merit Fellowship, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture

Selected Articles
2000 Image published, April 15 - August 15, 2000, www.ProjectRowhouses.org

Reviewed by Kelly Klaasmeyer, "Home Improvement",
Houston Press,May 4-10, 2000 (vol. 12, #18)

1999 Reviewed by C. Mutscheller, "Gallery Shows You have Missed",
Lumpen Magzine,Chicago, Sept. 1999

Reviewed by Ann Weins, "5 Shows to see Now - Vedanta Gallery"
Newcity,Chicago, Aug. 19, 1999

Image published, 1999, Showhegan Annual Award Magazine