Infinity In Finity by Yong Joo Kim

Artist list

Yong Joo Kim

As a studio artist, I have been challenged to witness - over and over again - that beauty arises from what may seem like ordinary or even mundane materials, when you give them your sincere empathy and persistent trust.

I came to realize that working with inexpensive materials was now the rule rather than the exception. Given my situation, I wanted to see how far I could go with this single material. At one point, I wanted to limit myself even further, and decided to use merely three distinct shapes of fasteners. It was during this time that I saw an unexpected link between survival, variety, and mastery. / Yong Joo Kim


About the Artist: 
What does it mean for us to survive? For Yong Joo, making art is a way of exploring this simple yet complex question.
Yong Joo focuses primarily on a single material of choice: hook and loop fasteners. The choice to create jewelry out of an inexpensive material often considered unattractive and mundane was originally inspired by two reasons. On the one hand, it was to survive financially by keeping material costs down. On the other hand, it was to challenge her ability to survive in a field known for its use of attractive and precious materials.

What Yong Joo has since learned is that the creative process is also something that requires survival. In the creative process, we often get stuck. When we do, we feel as if there is a finite limit to our ability to create. To survive the creative process is to continue to feel alive when we get stuck by not giving up. To do this, we must be able to embrace and appropriately respond to a variety of unpleasant surprises, so as to overcome them. What’s pleasantly surprising about this is that when we do, we often end up with art that defies our imagination. Art that provides us with experiences of sublime, inspiration, and beauty, which helps us realize that there still exists infinite possibilities. She wishes to share these experiences with those who witness or wear her work.

Yong Joo has been a featured speaker at premier conferences and exhibitions such as the Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG) and Sculpture Objects Functional Art and design (SOFA). 
Her work appears in the permanent collection of Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) and Velcro Group. Yong’s work was also selected for the Mari Funaki Award 2016. Also, the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London, has recently acquired three of artist’s bracelets as part of its permanent collection. 
 
Yong Joo will be attending the exhibition opening night and she will hold a lecture at the Melbourne Polytechnic Visual Arts-Jewellery department, Fairfield Campus, on Wednesday the 15th of March at 1pm. 
Yong Joo’s brooch will be also part of the Gallery O Seoul exhibition at NGV Design Store, Melbourne Design Week 2017. 
See the Infinity in Finity exhibition, works by Yong Joo Kim from the 17th of March until 6th of April 2017.