Seyoung Yim
[New York, United States]
Art Yourself Atelier is delighted to present "Floating Pillow", an exclusive solo online exhibition showcasing the extraordinary artistic vision of South Korea's emerging artist - Se Young Yim.
Artist's Biography
Se Young Yim is a New York based painter and sculptor. She was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, and studied Fashion there. Then she moved to the USA and received a MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. Also she has worked in various countries as an international artist. She was selected by GlogauAIR in Berlin, Germany and had a solo showcase. Additionally her works were exhibited at CICA Museum, Wess in South Korea, The Holy Art in the United Kingdom, Subtitled.NYC, The Visionary projects, Trestle Artspace, New Collectors gallery, Blah Blah gallery in the USA. Her artist interviews are featured by Contemporary Art Collectors, Glogau AIR and AI-Tiba9.
About the Solo Exhibition
《Floating Pillow》
"I take intimate and lonely feelings and sublimate them into paintings and sculptures. My recent
work involves recumbent figures, intimate moments and places, and objects or rocks with a
history of movement. I believe that we should be able to feel weirdness through art. In the busy
and repetitive modern society, art allows for a strange pause.
Strange sensations in life are accompanied by moments of silence. The gesture that makes me
think unconsciously is 'lying down' recently. I imagine the feeling of the surface of my skin
touching something that could be called the ground. It's like a rock on the street. Few months
ago, I was walking through the streets in Berlin and I came across a rock. It was about the size
of a man’s height, standing in a vacant lot, heavy and bulky. I stared at it for a long time. It was a
moment of silence in the midst of a moving body.
It doesn't matter where you live, whether it's a big city or not, you'll find a great flow in the
movement of people. There are two main types of people. Those who come and those who go. I
don't know anyone who hasn't moved a single step from birth to death. Inevitably, people require
a minimum amount of space to exist. This place is constantly shifting throughout life. As a
meaning of relationships, in the sense of forming a group or community and changing it. In
addition, in terms of geographically, there is a sense of moving around and staying in different
places for short periods of time. Being naturally experiences constant physical and
psychological movement.
However the gesture of 'lying down' stops moving for a moment. During my stay in various
cities, I observed people lying down: people for doing drugs, sleeping on the street or enjoying
sunlights in the middle of a park. For some, lying down is an act of sleeping, for others it is a
gesture of love, or it is a way of meditation, so on... This short pause offers anguish, love, prayer
and rest. Only when we lie down can we look into the depths of life. Even humans do that when
they are born and die.
Also it is one of the most pure gestures. Lying down is something that can be done without
doing anything; it doesn't have to need a purpose or an action, sometimes it just happens. For
example, the act of sitting is also simple but more purposeful. You might sit down at a desk to
write, or to wait for the subway, or to admire the view, or to talk to someone. Although it's
possible to sit and do nothing, it will be harder to sustain that status than lying down. At least the
act of sitting requires you to bend your knees, whereas lying down does not. Also you can close
your eyes and relax your muscles. This gesture makes it easy to be yourself, and at the same
time, it makes it possible to be intertwined with others. It is an intimate and pure pause.
I am inspired by the vulnerability of abandoned objects on the street. I explore the emotional
vulnerability of displaced bodies and objects through making sculptures that can give a feeling
of ghost, loneliness and dislocation from a faraway place. The project, Hug is the language for
the placing, consists of two installation works, and four sculptural pieces. Every sculpture in this
project shares a basic form: initially of a chair I discovered on the street, and then, the image of
bicycles chained and abandoned without wheels on the streets of New York. I disassembled the
chair and made molds of the individual pieces.
'It is true that we are all one, it is also true that each one of us is a unique entity, a cosmos by
itself.'
This comes from a book called ‘Art of Loving, by Erich from’ which I really liked and learned a lot
about. It is a brilliant sentence that describes human beings well, and it is consistent with the
way I look at things in art. I believe that every-being, regardless of people and objects, are
connected to each other, and at the same time each is an irreplaceable individual. So, I wanted
to create a sculpture by reflecting the human senses onto an object, and I wanted them to
resemble each other but have slightly different personalities. So making a mold and casting
worked for me in this regard.
I took a lot of walks outside, and empty chairs on the street caught my eyes. I thought they were
weird. Because a chair is a symbol of the physical space required by a static person.
Furthermore, a chair has a more human-like appearance than other furniture or objects. They
have legs to stand themselves, and some of them have unfolded arms just like before hugging
others. However, these chairs had no fixed place or people. It seems clear that they had a
history of moving from a certain environment. I started taking and collecting photos whenever I
met the empty chairs on the street. Then, I realized that I anthropomorphized them because I
identify with that sense of being out of place.
These pieces start with objects I've encountered on the road that evoke a certain emotion in me.
I still keep a close eye on things on the road. Abandoned things contain the anxiety that they
cannot be in one place forever and the history that has moved. I am evoking loneliness and
abandonment while reconstructing new forms and beings in the sculptures. Then, they receive
temporary space to locate. It could be a gallery, a studio, or a completely different place. In any
case, they will try to make contact with others through their inherent ghostliness. I believe this
feeling is universal for people, and it is the basis of the power that enables each other to love,
that is, to offer hugs."
Her Art Exhibition Experience
2023 · New York, USA
Village One Art -《Idylls & Reveries》
2023 · New York, USA
Charmoli Ciamoli -《Weekend》
2023 · New York, USA
Trestle Artspace -《A Labor Party》
2023 · New York, USA
A.I.R Gallery -《Immigrant Centuries 2023 Annual Postcard Show》
2023 · New York, USA
The Visionary Project -《While We Are Dreaming》
2023 · Philadelphia, USA
Blah Blah Gallery -《Finest Tooth》
2023 · Online, USA
Dodomu Gallery -《Emerging Artists 2023》
2023 · Gyeonggi Do, Republic of Korea
CICA Museum -《Visual Culture 2023》
2023 · Online, United Kingdom
Royal Blue Gallery -《Reflection》
2023 · Berlin, Germany
Glogau AIR Residency -《Open Studio》
2023 · London, United Kingdom
The Holy Art Gallery -《Outset》
2023 · Berlin, Germany
GlogauAIR Showcase -《I HIde Tulips Within My Neck (Solo)》
2023 · Seoul, Republic of Korea
Wess -《Kill Time Trash》
2022 · New York, USA
Subtitled NYC -《Flame casts no shadow》
2022 · New York, USA
SVA Chelsea Gallery -《Outro》
2022 · Online, Republic of Korea
Canverse -《NFT Exhibition》
2022 · New York, USA
'Visual AIDS' annual benefit auction -《Postcards from the Edge》
2021 · New York, USA
New Collectors Gallery -《COCOONS》
2021 · New York, USA
SVA Flatiron Gallery -《Misfits》
Her Work Experience
Jul 2022- Dec 2022 · New York, USA
Gallery Assistant - Subtitled NYC
Aug 2022- Sep 2022 · New York, USA
Painting Assistant - Taiwan Economic and Cultural Building
Aug 2022- Sep 2022 · New York, USA
Gallery Assistant - SVA Gallery
Sep 2021- May 2022 · New York, USA
Gallery Assistant - SVA Gallery
Aug 2020 - Nov 2020 · Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
Sculpting Assistant - Studio Chiccoo
Sep 2017 - Nov 2017 · Seoul, South Korea
Sculpting Assistant of Artist - Mu Kee Kim
Jul 2018 - Aug 2018 · New York, USA
Science and Art Educator - City Science
Her Study Experience
2022 · New York, USA
Master degree, Fine Arts, School of Visual Arts
2019 · Seoul, Republic of Korea
Bachelor degree, Fashion, Sungshin University