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Painting, Writing, Longing, by Lee O Young, translated by Wolhee Choe, 2000
The root for painting in Korean is the same for longing and writing. Wonsook Kim has brought this very root alive in her works in all of its form as one. This collection of paintings allows us to recall yearnings and stories of our youth with such clarity and vibrancy as to rival any form […]
Flowing to Happiness, by Yi Jooheon, translated by Wolhee Choe, 1998
Let us take the view which regards every object to be a sign: a person, a cow, an apple, a car or a cloud. Each thing comes to have a meaning as a sign. And then there is the position which argues that no phenomenon, sign, or word has or arrives at a final meaning. […]
Balancing Act, Whitney Chadwick, 1993
The reflection of a bird in a pool of water, the gnarled trunk of an ancient tree, a flowering bush springing from an otherwise barren cliff-face, two bundled figures asleep under the stars. It is images such as these — deceptively simple but never naive — that make up Wonsook Kim’s painted universe. They are […]
Blowing Wind: Kim Wonsook’s House, by Kim Whayoung, translated by Wolhee Choe, 1990
There is an unborn painter in each of our hearts, whose dormant existence, in the deepest recesses of our mind we do not even suspect. This unborn artist becomes more and more intimidated and hidden away as we grow older and more familiar with the names of great artists and the language of art; nevertheless […]
Kim Wonsook’s First Show in Seoul, Korea, by Oh Kwangsu, translated by Wolhee Choe. 1976
Soon after starting her art school training at Hogik University in Seoul, Wonsook Kim went abroad to continue it at Illinois State University, where she is currently enrolled as a graduate student while teaching as adjunct professor. Like so many other art students abroad, she is a student of art, but she has accomplished a […]
Where Worlds Collide, by Laurel Reuter, 1990
Can one make a case for tenderness in art?” “No! how terribly unfashionable. Contemporary art made today and judged in America is only important when it hovers on the cutting edge.” “What is the cutting edge? Could not an artist working in the spirit of humanism make art from tenderness? Is not that another cutting […]
An Interview with Wonsook Kim, by Eleanor Heartney
Wonsook Kim is one of those rare artists whose work seems inseparable from her personality. I have known her for over ten years, and yet I can scarcely remember – did those gently whimsical, touchingly poetic paintings introduce me to this high spirited artist, or was it the other way around? The fact is that […]