SANG WOO KIM

VISUAL AND PLASTIC ARTIST

Sang Woo Kim is a British-Korean artist that studied at Central Saint Martins in 2012 and then went on to stydy Fine Art at Goldsmiths University.

Raised in London with traditional Korean parents, he explores and confronts the alienating cultural factors that affected him from a young age. Within his, work Sang looks at a much discussed and relevant topic : identity, mainly first-generation immigrants and their struggle with cultural duality. He brings awareness to this conflict and expresses it poetically and with a sense of irony and humor. His aim is to surprise the viewer and cause a disruption that allows people to truly “see”.

Kim’s paintings are abstract and textured, capturing similar emotional brutality that was present in artworks from the 1950’s abstract expressionist era. The blurred lines and varying textures remove the identity of the subject. He purposefully uses abstraction as a means to communicate detached melancholy content. Text is drawn on one of his paintings in his solo exhibition “Easy on the eye” reads, I was blind when I was younger, and conflates seeing and being seen, the subject and the voyeur. Kim’s paintings suffest that the gaze comes from within and is tied to one’s identity and until one can cultivate it, one will always view himself and the world self consciously.

Sang Woo Kim participated in an ouction held by Avenir magazine and Sotheby’s which lead to his first solo exhibition ‘If you see ME NOW you don’t” in January 2017 and also presented his paintings at the 12th edition of “Contemporary Istanbul (CI)” which ended in September 2017. He has featured in group shows including Part of, Bond House Projects, London (2013); “Waiting rooms for Waiting Rooms”, Red Bull Studios, London (2014); “Yellow Sun: The New Contemporaries” Lagos (2015); “Licht Gestalten” Goodwin Projects, Hamburg (2017). He applies his creativity in many different fields from painting and photography to art-direction and curation, presenting his work at “MIA Photo Fair 2017” in Milan and collaborating with designers and magazines such as Dior, Thom Browne, Vogue, and W. He organized and curated “UK TO GERMANY” supported by coGalleries at Fata Morgana Gallery in 2017 and most recently collaborated as an art-director and painter with the brand Coach on a mural and exhibition in Seoul, South Korea.