Julie Kim, 2019
5"☓4", Inkjet Print Collage, Acrylic, Oil on Canvas

Julie Kim (2019)

In an obsessive and repetitive manner, my works deconstruct objects of my past and memory through acts of observation such as still-life painting, “gridding,” or “annotating.” These objects are documentations of my past such as printed labels, letters, or photographs, and I study the elements that get lost or added in these formal documents. My works are autobiographical surveys of—both the personal and cultural—memories and history. They ask general questions about identity that we all have: What’s the point in obsessing about or trying to pinpoint who I am? Can I have more than one identity? How do family, friends, and lovers define us?

My works do not aim to find one correct answer to these questions but aim to invoke a state of self-reflection and questioning to discover the complexity and multiple perspectives within the self. Ambiguity and dichotomous relationships—in the colors, shapes, forms, even the identity of the objects depicted in the works—play a significant role in guiding viewers to the conflicts and friction between various “identities.”

As a third-culture-kid, I feel both privileged and tortured, excited and exhausted, and I often find my mind racing to find the appropriate balance between my different “identities.” The repetitive exploration of my personal history acts as a cathartic outlet to let my mind run and exhaust itself to the point of caring too much or not caring anymore.

My working process intends to un-compartmentalize. In Julie Kim, I collect, observe, and collage intimate documents of letters and gifts exchanged with close friends and lovers. By painting on the photo collage, I connect and transform the group of photos into pockets of psychological spaces. I observe and annotate these memory objects to analyze and appreciate their contribution in defining who I am now.The process gives me time and space to observe and examine conflicting thoughts about my own identity.