artist chat: minku kim
interviewing nyc based painter Minku Kim on his earliest art making memories, process, and what's been inspiring him lately
A verdant green field, a sharp plane of color that cuts across the surface. Tennis courts, two fractured doorways, peering within a bright citrine gem. These images come to mind when I think of the artwork of New York-based artist Minku Kim (b. 1989). Working with a language of visual abstraction that encompasses straight edge to ornamental surrealist works, Minku’s paintings surprise and present the most welcome shifts of perspective, space, and color.
When I first met Minku, I was immediately struck by his measured demeanor. He never converses as if he’s in a rush, and listens with a thoughtful patience. His Brooklyn studio, where he works primarily, is suffused with sunlight that later casts dramatic shadows. Fresh flowers are interspersed alongside Minku’s completed paintings: his experimental studies are stacked neatly and larger wooden panels in progress line the walls. Minku plays the piano, and welcomes studio visits, where, if you come up close to a work, you can make out how precise layers of thick paint carve out each layer.
Minku is perhaps best known for the straight edge paintings which populate his Instagram feed (@mInku), but is constantly experimenting with different canvas shapes, collaborative projects, and new modes of expression—which include his surreal and dream-like ‘loose edge’ paintings. His studio is littered with monographs, and I get the sense that Minku is always looking at the work of other artists—both contemporary and not—for self-reflection and artistic growth. Some of his visual references are easy to name: Ellsworth Kelly and Park Seo-Bo. Others, particularly his loose edge works—spiraling and strange—evoke the works of Matisse.
I interviewed Minku over email to learn more about his practice, inspiration, and what’s been on his mind lately.
Interview with Minku Kim
KK: I’m interested in how artists get started. What is your earliest memory of art making?
MK: One of my first outdoor drawing experiences was when I was in elementary school. Our school field trip went out to Gyeongbokgung (a royal palace of Joseon Dynasty) for an annual art competition, and I was asked to pick a spot inside of the large palace and draw the landscape and architecture. I remember drawing a pine tree and each and every brick of the exterior of the royal palace. My friends drew for 30 mins or so and they played with each other and roamed around the palace, but I finished the color crayon drawing at the very last minute and ended up winning 1st place in the drawing competition. I have a very fond memory of life landscape drawing and painting from an early age.
MK: When I was in art college, I was obsessed with figure paintings and all of my art friends told me that I would be a great figurative artist but then, I always told them that I wanted to be a landscape painter someday. They all found it interesting and I couldn’t really find why until I was asked this question and had a chance to reflect upon some of my earliest art making experiences. So thank you, Katy!
My other memories include:
Drawing cars, birds with the Korean crayon (크레파스; also known as oil pastel) in airplane during the flight to NYC from Seoul when I was 5.
Obsessively looking and memorizing all the national flags in the world when I was around 6.
KK: How would you describe the formal interests or conceptual ideas that drive your artistic practice?
MK: I am interested in line, edges, color, materiality, and the space that evokes a certain sense of emotion. Artists like Brice Marden, Ellsworth Kelly, and Lee Ufan all explored visual power and poeticism through the language of formalism in painting.
Recently, I have been studying and drawing old master paintings from the Met or MoMA that I find historically significant or am personally attracted to. My common interests in these works might be the quality of line, abstract languages, and colors. I am interested in the ways the artists composed their pictures, creating formal and psychological narratives.
Lastly, the ideas of ‘Space’ and ‘Pictorial space’ are very important in my work. I always try to create, flatten, compress, then manipulate the space in my two-dimensional works through drawing elements, color, and composition. As much as I am invested in the pictorial space of the canvas, I care deeply about where the work is installed and how I’d like to present the paintings (although, I have much less control over the physical space/world outside of my studio). I am inspired by unique and beautiful interior spaces and the vastness of nature and try to translate my personal experiences on the canvas. So far, a lot of spatial experiences have been the spaces that I encounter within NYC or through my iPhone’s screen. I’d like to explore more in this realm in the near future.
KK: To me, some of your works evoke the rich colors and panels of Korean hanbok. Does your Korean heritage inform your work at all?
MK: As an immigrant living in NYC from Seoul, who has spent 15 years in Korea, it has already been over 18 years since I have been studying and growing up in New York. I am a Korean / American who speaks both languages and even sleep talks in both languages (depending on the night). For a number of years, I’ve felt neither Korean or American, but recently, I realized that I am both Korean and American AND Korean-American. I enjoy that fluidity in this shifting mentality when I create paintings or approach art making. Some weeks, I am very into making stripped down and minimal line based paintings and other weeks, I find myself collaborating with a dancer/choreographer at Merce Cunningham Dance company, and thinking about the organic nature of lines and obsessed over figuration.
My Korean heritage informs my work on how crafty I could get with each brushstroke and pay attention to great details. Traditional Korean artists were known for their high level of craftsmanship and for being great draftsmen as well. In my earlier drawings and some of my recent paintings, I could really feel my Korean-ness in the way I am very much obsessed with high maintenance production in terms of the painting’s surface qualities and the sensitivity in the way I use color. Speaking of colors, most of my favorite paintings have Obangsaek, the traditional color spectrum (Yellow, Red, Blue, White and Black). Without using those colors, I find myself a bit detached from the work and the paintings feel quite ‘foreign’, ‘exotic’ or ‘unfamiliar’. By incorporating at least 3 or all of these Obangsaek colors, I find myself reoriented and centered as a Korean/American.
I created a series of work called ‘Taegeuk’ back in 2013 which are half circle paintings that are supposed to be diptychs. I made the pieces as borderline conceptual and formal paintings that represent my divided identity as Korean American.
Koreans are highly detailed and crafty people. I pay great attention to the details such as edges, subtle color shifts, and line qualities in my work. Most of all, the surfaces in my work through the nearly perfectly parallel brush strokes are in lineage to the great Dansaekhwa artists such as Ha Chong-hyun, Lee Ufan, and Park Seo-Bo whom also pay significant spirit and soul into each marks through the paint brush or other tools.
KK: Can you tell me more about your process?
MK: Most of my ‘Straight Edge Painting’ and ‘Loose Edge Painting’ are freestyle without much preparatory drawing work. However, recently, I am trying to work on small drawings or paintings before translating them to larger canvas. However, my ‘Photograph Paintings’ are based on the photos I took or other reference photos that I already know how the paintings would look or feel by the end of the process.
KK: What has been one of your artistic breakthroughs?
MK: One of my artistic breakthroughs might have happened when I was in graduate school as a sculpture major. I was desperate to find my own voice and interest in the vast scope of contemporary art and art history. I’ve tried photorealistic paintings to rough abstract gestural paintings and from realistic portraits of figure sculpture to minimalistic architecture inspired sculpture. In my 2nd year of school, I learned to trust the process and to not be afraid to destroy a work.
KK: What do you do when you’re feeling stuck?
MK: I go see other exhibitions in the city or get out of NYC, being in nature. In reality, feeling stuck is normal and inevitable. I feel that sometimes the best way is just keep working and fight through it.
KK: I find the idea of artists building their own art historical “archives” and looking at the works of other artists fascinating. What is one artwork that you can always return to?
MK: I can’t really think of one work off the top of my head that I always return to. However, at least once a year or every few months, I return to the works by Picasso, Matisse, and Richard Diebenkorn. These artists have a share interested in synthesizing nature and abstraction. They all have a solid background in working from observation and drawing inspiration from nature.
KK: What is the best piece of advice you would give to another young artist?
MK: Stay patient and try to support other artists. These are two things that I find quite valuable over the past 10 years of practicing as a young artist. Above all, it is the most important to work hard and as much as you can. Try to be honest with yourself and to know yourself. These sound all too cliche but some of these are what I am reminding myself lately. Making art and being an artist is a marathon.
With that, I hope you enjoyed reading our interview as much as I enjoyed speaking with Minku. You learn more about Minku Kim on his website and at @mInku.
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