Karis Kim

I'm a Korean artist focusing on contemporary & oriental style paintings. I am also a poet and writer of philosophy & psychology and have published books on this subject in 2013 and 2018 titled ‘Midnight Blue’ & ‘Chaos’. I am now preparing to publish a novel.

Each of my artworks have a story that binds philosophy, psychology & literature. This is the reason I, a philosopher, started painting; it was because of the merit of being able to deliver many contents in only one visual. Personally, I hope that my paintings do not just show interest or visual effects, but convey many hidden contents and give emotion and bring enlightenment in the minds of the observers.

Vincent Van Gogh

I put my emotions such as joy, happiness, anger, sorrows, etc. in my paintings. Not tailored to the needs of others or contemporary society, but what I want to draw, I want to express, I just transfer my feelings, thoughts, or the voice of God shown during prayer on the canvas. As I appreciate Gogh's life such as the gap between reality and ideals, the despair and pain he may have experienced, it is a lot of comfort to my situation because he must have led a more painful life than me. Despite being poor and neglected, lonely and painful days, he left a masterpiece. I hope that my paintings will also remain a work that humans and Gods can feel and share rather than compromise with reality.

Main materials of art works are mixed media or acrylic on canvas. As far as color is concerned, I do not use commercial paint, but make all the colors myself; these colors with some mediums and plaster are used to create mixed media.

My process of plastering the object with creative colors, then sculpting it gives it a three-dimensional effect. It is not limited to the genre of art, but can give the effects of literature, architecture, music, sense, and also provide texture.

Most literature and art are written by writers or painters. It provides the subject and meaning to the works. However, my works aim to provide partial meaning, as I believe the viewer’s observation and thought process should interpret the meaning behind the works. Also my works are neither realism nor aestheticism, those are mainly semi-abstraction. The central themes of my works are the meaning of life, the value of nature, pursue of freewill, desire of freedom, revolution of colors, communion and creation with God, express an emotion by rough or soft dot, line and strokes, breaking away from standardized things and add on philosophy, psychology and spirituality on arts.

The charm of oriental painting is to express everything by line and rough stroke only. Using various colors can distort the original intention of artist, but using simple colors can express both objective and intention of the artist. If color & water are restrained as much as possible, the artist can express the deep objective in more detail This way, I can concentrate on my art work as I don’t need to worry about suitable color selection and can focus on story-telling adding to the subject of philosophy, psychology & literature.

You may like my artworks but may not don’t understand it, but since you’ve started reading this, I can at least assume you are curious about this perplexing art form that evades definition and artistic classification. I refuse to overtly describe the objective, but pursue to express my thoughts, philosophy, mind & creation on paper.

Oriental brush writing is only expressed with ink and brush on paper, so the ingredients are so simple, but this writing contains the beauty of formativeness and rhythm and can express a writer's personality and psychology. Also, it does not draw specific objects, but simply symbolic letters composed of dots, lines and strokes. Since it requires a writer's high imagination, it can be called abstract.

I don't want my work style to be assigned by others. Each work has its own characteristics and story. When selecting the subject of the work, I aim to express the world of creation that is not generalized and ends with the beauty or thoughts portrayed, but remain deep in everyone's hearts. My works have to understand the subject first, then find a way to portray it.

The question of which work/style has been my favorite is like asking when was the happiest time in life. However, since sadness, suffering, joy and pain were all part of my life as well, I have created all my works with a lot of love, so I have a love for all my works just as parents love all their children equally.

A number of my contemporaries at Cal-Arts went to New York to pursue the life of an artist in the city and presumed centre of the “art world”, and indeed became famous. I had spent some time in the city and decided that this was not the environment where I wanted to be, so, despite realizing that the city was where one became “famous” as an artist, I wanted a different, more natural environment for my life. I also did not want to be in an obligatory situation to a gallery—I wanted to be free to follow my own vision and inspirations. As a result, my sculpture has been commissioned throughout the States, with large scale projects in 27 different countries; two major works for World Expo 1988 in Brisbane; a major sculpture for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing; and how many Americans have 23 large-scale public sculptures throughout China? Which in my eye is a very interesting and exciting place for sculpture and art. As for where art, sculpture and the art world are headed, it is beyond my expertise: I do see a lot more works being created using CAD in one form or another; a lot more installation type projects, as opposed to what I create; and a good bit of social-work type art projects. It does not interest me to lead or follow in any of these areas—I am more interested in following my own personal path, vision and interests.