StrictlyPaper - Highlighting the creative uses of paper
Ethereal nature Inspired Paper Cut Illustrations by Kyong Ae Kim
June 21, 2016 by jasmine
San Fransisco based Korean artist Kyong Ae Kim, intrigued by the symbiotic relationships of ecology and the fragile vulnerability of living creatures in their surroundings, has created these series “The Skulls” and “Wildwood”, where her process involves recreating skulls and trees as paper cut illustrations, creating forest-like images which she hopes will illuminate our responsibility to protect nature and seek coexistence.
In “The Skulls” series, she uses the photographed skulls of endangered species such as polar bears and elephants as a reference. She cuts several layers of drafting film by hand in varying shades of bright to dark, where she then transforms them into multiple stacked layers. These layers represent time and evolution, like that of fossils.
In the ‘Wildwood’ series below, she cuts the drafting film of multiple images of trees after some have been digitally manipulated to further their transformation. This creates added depth as if peering through a portal of that trees ghosted past in nature.
Boston Globe
They’re naturals byKate Mcquaid, January 19, 2010
“Netherworld,’’ the feisty little group show at Judi Rotenberg Gallery put together by Beth Kantrowitz and Kathleen O’Hara, features works by artists who create natural scenes freighted with irony, history, and other cultural baggage.
Kyong Ae Kim uses traditional Korean painting techniques in her flattened landscapes. She simplifies forms and uses a solid background; cliffs are depicted in a series of lines, stylized geologic accretions. Her animals move so fast they resemble water splashing. In “Cliff 6,’’ an unidentifiable animal frolics in a pond. The subject, more than nature, is action, even the slow action of landscapes shifting.
Boston Globe
Dark looks, NETHERWORLD at Judi Rotenberg Gallery, January 11, 2010
Boston Globe
Arts: the week ahead, NETHERWORLD: CARL D’ALVIA, JULIA HECHTMAN, KYONG AE KIM curated by Beth Kantrowitz/ bk projects and Kathleen O'Hara/OH Projects, January 7, 2010
New American Painting
Open Studio Press, Northeast Edition, Feburary 2007
Boston Globe
Gallery Pick by Kate Mcquaid, ‘Kyong Ae Kim-Junglescape’, October 26, 2006
Kyong Ae Kim’s paintings are a subtle style cocktail of Asian landscape, abstraction, comic-book graphics, and commentary on evolution. They feature flat, hybridized forms, stylized silhouettes that hint at the familiar, then tug it away from you. In one work (they’re all titled “Junglescape”), plants are blue. A beige critter could be a bird ruffling its feathers, or perhaps it’s a squid. A massive rock formation might also be a waterfall. These paintings add up to a utopian dream, a picture of a future when all life forms have cross-pollinated to a point of peaceful co-existence. That may never happen, but as a painter, Kim’s take on landscape is an original one.
Providence Journal
pg. I. 01, Bill Van Siclen, ‘Voice:Women in Contemporary Art’, May, 21, 2006
Artweek
Cream from the top, pg 13 & 14 of Artweek's October 2005