b. 1968 - Gosung, South Korea
Cheoluy Kim’s practice examines the blurred frontier between perceived reality and fantasy. His work is informed by a childhood growing up on the border of North and South Korea in Gosung. There, he grew fascinated by all the fauna and flora he observed from his village surrounded by mountains, as well as the air balloons carrying political propaganda. He witnessed everything in the sky. This instilled a deeply rooted reflex to imagine a fantastical world beyond the physical frontiers he was bound by.
Cheolyu Kim studied and obtained his master in sculpture, although, his current practice is entirely devoted to pen drawing on either paper or wood. Either bicolored or monochrome, the artist's typically limited chromatic palette gives room for an intense focus on detailed compositions, tonal gradients, and multiple perspectives.
Kim’s background in sculpture is evident in the carved-like volumes of the elements in his drawings. Fine moire and cross-hatching are used for textures and shading in the drawn sections while the paper or wood is left fully exposed in other areas.
Imaginary fauna and flora abound which contributes to a rather biomorphic aura to his work. All the while, indigenous, modern and futuristic architectural structures are erected and confuse any sense of fixed temporality. Rather, it projects us into a phantasmagorical universe where past, present and future collapse into one. Some perspectives are even skewed disrupting our contemplation. Totemic poles, origami-shaped creatures, and aquatic vegetation coexist fluidly in Kim’s oniric visions. His fine-detailed patterned dreamscapes engage the viewer actively; we are called upon to discover how do all the various entities interact over the multiple receding planes building up to Cheolyu's surrealist ecosystems.
Cheolyu holds an M.F.A in Sculpture from Brooklyn College-University of NY and a B.F.A. in Sculpture from Chung-Ang University of Seoul, Korea.
Cheoluy Kim’s practice examines the blurred frontier between perceived reality and fantasy. His work is informed by a childhood growing up on the border of North and South Korea in Gosung. There, he grew fascinated by all the fauna and flora he observed from his village surrounded by mountains, as well as the air balloons carrying political propaganda. He witnessed everything in the sky. This instilled a deeply rooted reflex to imagine a fantastical world beyond the physical frontiers he was bound by.
Cheolyu Kim studied and obtained his master in sculpture, although, his current practice is entirely devoted to pen drawing on either paper or wood. Either bicolored or monochrome, the artist's typically limited chromatic palette gives room for an intense focus on detailed compositions, tonal gradients, and multiple perspectives.
Kim’s background in sculpture is evident in the carved-like volumes of the elements in his drawings. Fine moire and cross-hatching are used for textures and shading in the drawn sections while the paper or wood is left fully exposed in other areas.
Imaginary fauna and flora abound which contributes to a rather biomorphic aura to his work. All the while, indigenous, modern and futuristic architectural structures are erected and confuse any sense of fixed temporality. Rather, it projects us into a phantasmagorical universe where past, present and future collapse into one. Some perspectives are even skewed disrupting our contemplation. Totemic poles, origami-shaped creatures, and aquatic vegetation coexist fluidly in Kim’s oniric visions. His fine-detailed patterned dreamscapes engage the viewer actively; we are called upon to discover how do all the various entities interact over the multiple receding planes building up to Cheolyu's surrealist ecosystems.
Cheolyu holds an M.F.A in Sculpture from Brooklyn College-University of NY and a B.F.A. in Sculpture from Chung-Ang University of Seoul, Korea.
