Yeonsoo Kim
Exeter, New Hampshire
Biography
Kim was born in Haenam, South Korea. He earned his MFA in ceramics at Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, and his BFA in ceramics and glass from the Hongik University, located in Seoul, Korea. He has held apprenticeships with Onggi masters in Jeolla-do (Hayngjong-Oh) and Gyeongsang-do (Jinkyu Huh) in Korea. Kim has won multiple awards and exhibited nationally and internationally. Most recently, he was named one of the top six Emerging Artists of 2020 from the National Council on Education the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) and had a solo exhibition at the Radius Gallery in Missoula, MT. He has participated in several artist residency programs, including the Korea Ceramic Foundation, Montana State University, Morean Center for Clay, Houston Center for Houston Contemporary Craft and the Archie Bray Foundation.
Artist Statement
In all my pieces, diverse characters appear together and communicate with each other, speaking to viewers with their expressions faces. Formally the work addresses implied images and stories. The shape of the faces could be self-portraits of myself. My pieces addressed about psychological conditions of daily life. That question to look for my identity as an artist. I have been focused on one subject, which I called a “Listening”. Basically, the Listening is a metaphor for describing emotions of myself. I was motivated by the idea that displacement is completely outside my control, but such a good chance to pursue my own aesthetic work. The Listening was my way of making a visual reality from my abstracted inner emotions. In all my pieces, diverse characters appear together and communicate with each other, speaking to viewers with their expressions faces. Formally the work addresses implied images and stories. The shape of the faces could be self-portraits of myself.
