In Search of Lost Time

[Article by Kim Yong-dae]

1995 Won Gallery Catalogue

Running through the works of Kim Myong Hi is a sense of time―more accurately, a sense of time lost. This time, aphysical and unmeasurable, evokes vital connections in human thought. It takes a concrete form, leaving palpable traces on the flat surface of canvas. From the sunny smile of a young boy to the impassive expression of a woman with one given role in life, traces of human life emerge. These traces also take on the forms of many other everyday sights such as nameless wild flowers, trees, meadows, clouds, skies, and spent ammunition shells probably left behind by the Russians and Americans.

Humans or objects, these forms engage the artist’s subjects, leaping over the limits of time and space, generating a new illusion that is independent of the time and space of which they were once a part. Through a process at once meticulously logical and powerfully imaginative, the artist becomes a “recorder of understanding.” She reconstructs circumstance through observation and experience and meticulously records her perspective. Her work “The Excursion that I Missed” vividly illustrates this process; she creates a portrait of herself in the form of a child who could not participate in a happy school event. It is the artist’s imagination that renders the child’s participation possible in spite of her physical absence.

Living in an abandoned school building in Naepyungli and shuttling between Korea and the United States, Kim explores her deep sense of loss. This sense of loss has led her to the discovery of her own place in a remote village near the 38th Parallel that cuts across Korea. She has appointed herself as one of the “guardians” of the place, along with the children, snakes, women, dogs, and the various historical relics she found there. To her, these are the embodiments of guardian spirits, reminiscent of the Twelve Earthly Deities, who wield protective powers over her present circumstance. As shown in the MFA thesis she wrote in 1975, “[Study of Schemetized Paintings of Hwa-Gak Handicraft],” she holds a strong interest in the Eastern [religious/cultural?] tradition, particularly in the concept of the“ guardian/recorder.” Through the union of nature and the souls of the disappeared human beings, she seeks to reclaim time that has been lost. Her works spring to life as she ferries between the sense of present reality and the images of the children and the chalkboard, the repository of memory.

In Naepyungli the reminders of the past abound. Scattered about the village are old signs with slogans such as “Defeat communism!” “Let’s unify our mother country,” “Be patriotic,” “Honor your parents,” “Work hard,” and “Be sure to report spies.” These relics lie discarded, expressionless―traces of people who lived there one brief moment, then went their way. The remnants of times long past linger on in spent shells, rubber balls, and flowers probably planted by the children. Leaving its footprints, time has passed by. The objects are now actors that occupy the artist’s stage and the actors, her own portraits.

Kim’s “record” paintings appear to have been inspired by the Buddhist and shaman traditions, in which the idea of human beings as messengers is a recurring motif. The starting point of her work is dislocation. The search for location initiates understanding. For the artist, the chalkboard is not a mere relic but a witness. She leaps over time, eager to relive the situation. Among the found remains of everyday life, she uncovers a story and proceeds to tell it. The setting is now, but the images are drawn from the past. By placing familiar everyday images in unfamiliar settings, she arrives at new insights and methods that reveal surprising connections. Throughout this dislocation process, her thoughts wander freely between memory and present circumstance.

Memory is possible only when raw human experience, by undergoing a filtering process of imagination, takes on a unique form. Kim creates this structure of form, but at its center is her structure of consciousness. Where the latitude of memory and the longitude of circumstance intersect, her images spring. The name of this location is Naepyungli; at this very location, Kim initiates the process of dislocation. With flawless logic and descriptive exactitude, she holds firm in her stance as a third-person witness. To bridge the gap between reality and image, she makes use of the classroom chalkboard, a surface on which social code is conceptualized and understood.

Through this ever-continuing dialogue, the artist produces her own story―memory and form, and whatever exists therein. As she engages her subjects, she reaches for new perceptions and discovers novel connections. In one of her works, she attaches a ball to the canvas, adding a sculptural element. This act provides an opportunity to integrate circumstance, discovery, and interpretation―a new paradigm for understanding. In another work, she utilizes the image of the neighboring woman from the village, creating a fresh scenario in which the entirety of her subject is revealed. Situation and actor connects everything in Kim’s work. Through the union of nature and humans and of relics and images, the sense of loss is finally overcome.

As Kim travels back and forth between the two continents, her awareness of location intensifies, and her sense of loss becomes keener. This sense of loss prods her awareness, propelling its search, her everyday subjects providing a vehicle for this search. Her meticulously representational method directly relates to this search as well. Accompanied by instinctual, automatic technical portrayal, awareness and methodology fuse to create a style that is distinctly her own. Her subject activates her awareness, then logic is summoned and circumstance imagined. This process transforms the artist from a mere recorder of memories into a witness for the lives of human beings who, with all their hopes and aspirations unrealized, are about to disappear into the oblivion of history.

Kim’s works are her shadows; they reveal her thoughts as they critique them. By dissecting memory as a scientist might, she tells the story of her land, offering new interpretations to the Earthly Deities as embodied in her subjects. As she strives to remain true to this process, time becomes a physical presence that almost gets in the way.