Sohee Kim
Prints

July 2016

On Monday, July 4th at 7pm an exhibition of prints by Sohee Kim will be open.

When I ride a train packed with people, I feel we are being treated as objects. Propelled by invisible forces, we are sucked involuntarily into containers such as buses, trains and elevator, and swept off to the same places every day. People are transformed into passive automatons by the repetition of daily routines and the supremely efficient functioning of the megalopolis. Without realizing it, we lose our keen and vivid senses and grow accustomed to the role of inanimate objects.
What I am attempting to do is not to denounce the conflicts and alienation that inevitably arise from this lifestyle of ours, but rather to depict them with a humorous sensibility. The scenes I portray are not the ones I see day to day, but rather dramatized images based on the ironies I perceive. Subjects that are familiar form everyday life are thrown into a confused state or aspect by their size or positioning. The images are imbued with humor that springs from a playful imagination. Play is one strategy for coping with the pitiless reality around us.
All play begins with imagination. This is because it is through imagination that we can create playful spaces in the midst of humdrum reality. Imaginative spaces are based on reality, and reality serves as an apparatus that establishes these imaginative spaces. This is like experiencing a different dimension that occupies the same place simultaneously. Because humorous images born of a playful imagination connect with our everyday lives in a manner different from that of reality, they may appear to be meaningless or illogical, but in fact they represent one facet of life. Perhaps they could even be said to reflect the facts of life.
For Example, we can view people losing their freedom and individuality, and being gradually reduced to shadows of themselves, not as a serious process but as a humorous one. The figure of the human lost and buried beneath a tidal wave of things is in fact the embodiment of our own slow death at the hands of day-to-day life.
Laughing at something is a phenomenon that results from objective observation and criticism of that thing. With a healthy dose of humor, I hope to face the cruelties and absurdities of contemporary society head on, and send a message of encouragement and laughter to all the people surviving in the world today.
Sohee Kim