JINCHUL KIM was born in South Korea and came to the U.S. in 1989. He earned a BFA and MFA from King Se-Jong University in Seoul Korea, concentrating in painting. In 1993 he earned another MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He exhibits his work internationally, including shows in Korea, Japan, France, Spain and the U.S. He has had over 20 solo exhibitions in New York, Florida, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Seoul and over 300 invitational group exhibitions. He was selected as the Artist of the Year in 1986 by Art Journal magazine in Seoul. In 1995 he received the Phyllis H. Mason Grant from Art Students League of New York. In 2005 he was awarded a grant from the George Sugarman Foundation in Novato, California. He has received the Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award twice, in both 2006 and 2013. Kim is a professor at Salisbury University and teaches Senior Exhibition, Painting and Drawing classes as head of the painting and drawing areas. In 2008 he earned the University System of Maryland’s highest faculty honor: The Regents Faculty Awards for Excellence in Teaching. The same year he also received the Salisbury University Distinguish Faculty Award in Teaching.

 

 

ARTIST STATEMENT
I am interested in blurring the boundaries between things which we have concluded in predated aesthetics. I am very interested in constructing newer languages that can embrace/unite these preconceived definitions with innovated constructs. For this mission, I attentively engage my picture-making process through inventive personal semiotics. These semiotic connotations are melted into my work alongside the strong presence of formal strategies. I use the formal approach as a binder to build a robust architecture for the painting, whether the work is involved in abstracts or representational environments. I hope to generate a dynamic for the viewer to participate in a game of reveal/conceal through newer compositions and contrasting the firm architecture of painting with the artifice of superficial beauty. Consequently, I often mingle around two-dimensional formats to kinetic structures and space to convey this creative freedom to merge these various presumptions around our lives. I often use figurative elements as vehicles to intensify the presence of common ground, because we are all human at the end of the day.