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Mari Kim’s wide-eyed, pretty porcelaneous, characters, also known as ‘Eyedolls’, pay service to Japanese manga and anime culture. Often direct representations of well known political and historical figures, super heroes, or fairy tale characters they are instantly recognisable icons, popularised by western media. Mari Kim’s training in animation is understood through her use of bright, bold colours, simplified form and idealised features. With petite mouths and small noses her portraits confront fixed ideas and misogynist expectations of beauty and femininity projected by mainstream media and contemporary culture.
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Mari K
im | Synchro
nicity
There is a pathological compulsion today to buy the newest iPhone. And this insistent urge is brought about by a hallucinatory, flattened, candy-coloured perception that characterises Post-Pop culture. The wide-eyed, unblinking mannequins of Mari Kim are the target consumers in this brave new world. The androgynous dolls are adroit at tapping messages into hand-held devices in one hand while sipping a sweet elixir from a pastel coloured cardboard vessel in the other. A neon bubble caption, ‘Fake is the new trend and everyone seems to be in style’, accompanies a particularly slick character dressed in black, whose quizzical, raised eyebrow suggests that even the most banal observation should be regarded as ironic. A pair of distressed-looking red and yellow flower dolls stare out vacantly from another work. Their neon bright sound bubbles ask us to “keep calm and buy art”. The implication is that the acquisition of art or any other luxury commodity has, in fact, quite the opposite effect. It results in barely concealed panic.
It is surely the point of the uniform dolls that Kim creates, that they be lost and frightened. The characters from ‘the famous show series’ adopt a variety of guises, none of which suit them. The yellow haired, Jane Goodall, set within a Rousseau-like landscape, draws away from the pet monkey, seeking succour, who clings to her arm. The Iron Lady looks nothing like the fearless warrior we imagine, rather, she is now a vulnerable, uncertain open-mouthed victim of circumstance. And here we reveal another level to the artist’s apparently flat image-making; the powerlessness of the dolls in the face of the tide of consumerism, but also the ineffectiveness of society to make sense of life. The dolls are testament to a melancholia that afflicts us all. A doll is able to adopt the practice and appearance of Marie-Antoinette. It can eat a pink, sugared cake, and thereby acknowledge a corrupted observation that the tragic Queen is alleged to have uttered, but that does not make it a heroine, a failed monarch, or crucially a part of this historical narrative. The great fault of Post-Modernism is its detachment from origins, roots and life’s narrative. This is expressed clearly in Kim’s sad mannequins.
The irony implicit within these dolls is that they fit perfectly the marketing and packaging of consumer goods. And this can been seen
MARI KIM
in the designs for album covers and cosmetics, a market in which Kim enjoys equal success. The boundary between complicity, detachment and awareness of contemporary consumption habits, and the position of the consumer good within this matrix, highlights a particularly perceptive component to the work.
The currency of the imagery in these pictures is based on a random, media-aware assembly of real and fictitious characters, whose relative significance is reduced to a single value. The dead singer, Amy Winehouse, Diana, Princess of Wales and Frida Kahlo, share a tragic female narrative that might be considered heroic if they were men, but the emotional impact of the three works is no different in the eyes of Mari Kim from that of the cartoon heroines Lara Croft or Supergirl.
The art of Mari Kim is historically aware. In Quiet Room we are faced by a schoolgirl in whose room is hung vitrines within which are suspended butterflies. This image refers both to the taxidermy of Damien Hirst and to the transience of consumerism and perhaps even life. In Perfect Holiday the doll adopts the reverse pose to that of the elegant Madame Récamier. The doll is coquettish where Juliette Récamier is demure. The doll appears to reveal all, but in so doing fails to excite the same sense of longing that is evoked in the iconic painting by David. And this uncovers the real intention of the art of Mari Kim. There is nothing behind the image. The world is enfolded in ennui. We are all perplexed, confused and filled with an insatiable longing for which we know not.
The sadness implicit in this work is not immediately apparent, but the large kaleidoscopic eyes that reflect the phenomenological world like a convex Jan van Eyck mirror also act as limpid pools of deep unhappiness. The portrayal of Ryu Gwan-sun looks frightened and lonely. She sits in her traditional costume clutching her nation’s flag, clinging to an identity within an anonymous global cyberspace. The face in Self Portrait captures acutely the inability of the artist to understand her own soul amidst the art market congestion, which demands that painters project a posture as much as any other member of this commodity-inspired world.
Iain Robertson. Head of Art Business Studies, Sotheby’s Institute of Art
Quiet Room Perfect Holiday Ryu Gwan-sun The Iron Lady
Diana blueUltra chrome ink printed on canvas130cm x 110cm, 2014
Diana pinkUltra chrome ink printed under lenticular130cm x 110cm, 2014
Name of Justice / graffiti mix Acrylic color marker and paint on printed canvas110cm x 150cm, 2014
Amy Winehouse Acrylic color marker and paint on printed canvas110cm x 148cm, 2014
Frida KahloUltra chrome ink printed under lenticular130cm x 110cm, 2014
Angelina JolieUltra chrome ink printed under lenticular130cm x 110cm, 2014
The Queen RedUltra chrome ink printed on canvas130cm x 110cm, 2014
The Queen BlackUltra chrome ink printed on canvas130cm x 110cm, 2014
The Queen GreenUltra chrome ink printed under lenticular130cm x 110cm, 2014
The Queen PinkUltra chrome ink printed under lenticular130cm x 110cm, 2014
The Queen YellowUltra chrome ink printed under lenticular130cm x 110cm, 2014
Jane GoodallUltra chrome ink printed under lenticular130cm x 97cm, 2014
Tinkerbell Ultra chrome ink printed under lenticular90cm x 110cm, 2014
Vivienne WestwoodUltra chrome ink printed under lenticular130cm x 110cm, 2014
Resurrection of The Little Match GirlUltra chrome ink printed under lenticular130cm x 110cm, 2014
Supergirl Ultra chrome ink printed under lenticular130cm x 110cm, 2014
MARI KIM
2006 Master’s Degree in Creative Media, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia
Solo Exhibitions
2014 Famous Show in Berlin, JR Gallery, Berlin Famous Eyedoll, AP Contemporary Gallery, Hong Kong
2013 Aqua Art Miami, Aqua Hotel, Miami Famous Show in Hong Kong, LCX Hourbor city, Hong Kong
2012 Famous Show in Dubai, Opera Gallery, Dubai Famous Show in Busan, Gana Art Gallery, Busan Famous Show, Gana Art Gallery, Seoul
2011 Child Play, Television 12 Gallery, Seoul
2009 Eyedoll Show, LVS Gallery, Seoul
2008 Sugar Candy Show, Ssamzie Illupop Gallery, Seoul
Selected Group Exhibitions
2013 K- Surrogates, Amalgamated Gallery, New York K-Collective, Shine Artists Gallery, London Sub Express 2013, Culture Station Seoul Gana 30th Anniverary Celebration Exhibition, Gana Art, Seoul 2012 Festival O! Gwangju International Media Art 2012, Gwang Ju Cartoon World, Soma Museum of Art, Seoul My Funny Valentine, KimReeA Gallery, Seoul Dragon In Your Room, Atelier Aki, Seoul
2011 Black & White, Opera Gallery, Seoul Character Logue, Jangheung Art Park, Jangheung Fun & Toy, Gana Art Gallery, Busan Clio Box, Insa Art Center, Seoul Imagination Virus, Jeonnam Art Museum, Gokseong A Fantastic Place, Pyo Gallery South, Seoul
2010 IROBOT, Cho Sun Gallery, Seoul Pop Party, Jangheung Art Park, Jangheung Byul Collection Now, Gallery Hyundai K-Auction, Seoul Decem Satisfaction, Gallery LEEBE, Busan Korean Contemporary Art 3–Pop Art, Kimhae Art Center, Kimhae Korean 50 Contemporary Artists, Gyeonggi Arts Center, Suwon Wow~! Funny Pop, Gyeongnam Art Museum, Changwon Korean Pop Art, Art Seasons Gallery, Singapore
2009 Korean Neo Pop, Gangnam Media Pole, Seoul Hello Funnism, Shin Han Gallery, Seoul Beauty Rescues the World, Ssamzie Gallery, Seoul Fun, K& Gallery, Seoul Science Meets the Art, KAIST Gallery, Seoul Korean Cartoon 100 years, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul
2008 Art Idol, Gallery Seo Ho, Seoul
Collection Seoul Museum of Art Gyeongnam Art Museum Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KiST)
49 Albemarle Street London, W1S 4JR www.shineartists.com [email protected] mobile +44 7957346729 tel +44 20 7499 1616
Mari Kim | Synchronicity
Self Portrait
