Today we’d like to introduce you to Tae Rim Kim

Hi Tae Rim, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.

I am from Korea and I am an artist. I am a current MFA candidate at school of visual arts. When I was younger I decided to be an artist since I like to draw and paint. After I graduated college for BFA in Korea, I was thinking of study abroad to broaden my perspective. I had a hard time to prepare for school in America in terms of language and portfolio but I was lucky that I got accepted in art school at New York. I’m happy I have lots of opportunities to learn different cultures, perspectives, and aspects from my classmates and faculties.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?

Since when I have decided to be an artist, there were lots of challenges to reach it. I failed two times to get accepted in art school in Korea. We have to prepare academic art to get in school. I had prepared it for 6 years, which made me think I’m not talented. Also, during my journey of preparing for art school, I had mixed feelings of whether to give up or not and I wandered and was skeptical myself to make art. Even if I was depressed and diffident about my own talent, I kept doing it. That’s the reason I could get where I am today.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?

I am a painter. My paintings explore the fleeting essence of “Geumho San,” the Seoul slums in South Korea where I grew up, which now linger as ephemeral landscapes in collective memory. Through oil paints, I render the tactile quality of these memories, with complex structures now blurred and colors muted by the passage of time. With a raw immediacy and tenderness, I loose brushstrokes to create instability of my retrospect and build up geometry shapes of flat plane that come out to me intensive. Also, lump and thick of oil is a few examples to capture snapshots of a reality and recollection. My paintings lie at the intersection of abstraction and realism by extracting indeterminate forms generated by dots, lines, and faces in describing the old place as it is, where to be considered as worthlessness for aesthetic, invoking Geumho San’s textures and the emotional remnants of my memories. This process transforms the landscape into a canvas of abstracted chaos, prompting viewers to interpret involving imagery of my personal recollections.

Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?

Personally I am an introvert and coy so networking is the one I usually struggle. It’s hard to have advice but for me, I try to keep in community where I am. If you are in there, you could find your mentor naturally. When I was in undergraduate program, I took an effort to meet someone in the community. I think if you look around in your area, mentor is not far from you but near. Everyone around you like your professor, boss, senior, junior, and etc could become your not only mentor but also networking of your community. Work on to be brave and and come up to them.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: zt_ry0