In My Garden I
Artist Statement
In his highly anticipated debut solo exhibition, In My Garden, artist Hyojung Kim opens the doors to a vibrant, deeply immersive botanical universe where raw, untamed intensity and profound, quiet gentleness do not merely collide, but beautifully and harmoniously coexist. Moving completely away from traditional, literal representations of flora and the predictable conventions of landscape painting, Kim utilizes commanding, definitive structural lines and heavily layered, sculptural textures to construct a wholly unique series of abstract flowers that pulse with their own internal vitality and emotional truth. Each individual canvas functions as a complex microcosm of the natural world, masterfully capturing the inherent dualities, invisible tensions, and delicate balances that define our living ecosystem.
Through his dynamic, passionate brushwork and a thick, tactile application of medium that rises off the surface, the artist successfully balances a powerful, grounded physical weight with an ethereal sense of fluid vulnerability and fleeting grace. The surface of the canvas is completely transformed through this process; it is no longer just a flat plane of color and shape, but a living, breathing landscape rich with physical depth, dimensional shadows, and profound emotional resonance. By deliberately harmonizing these seemingly opposing forces—strength and softness, rigid structure and organic chaos, explosive energy and quiet restraint—Kim ultimately elevates the traditional depiction of a garden into a tense yet deeply harmonious sanctuary. In doing so, he creates a profound visual dialogue that invites viewers to slow down, step inside, and intimately reconsider their own relationship with the wild, resilient, and beautifully complex patterns of the world around them.
