Kyungmi Shin, Monster’s appetite

Various Small Fires, Seoul, South Korea | March 4 - April 15, 2023

“Originally trained as a sculptor, Shin's current practice is inspired by black-and-white vintage photographs from the artist's family album. She layers historic works from Western art history, such as Edouard Manet's Luncheon on the Grass (1862), and juxtaposes them with traditional East Asian imagery like the buggy-eyed tiger and Bonghwang, a mythological phoenix, from traditional Korean folk painting. The multiple layers of both Eastern and Western imagery invite the viewer to step into the manifold scenes.  

Shin was born to Calvinist Christian ministers in Busan, the stronghold of Buddhism located in the southern coastal region of the Korean peninsula. Reflecting her personal life trajectory of being a religious and racial outsider, the title of the show is drawn from the Pulitzer-winning poet Natalie Diaz's Postcolonial Love Poem. Diaz's text is in tune with Shin's poetic approach to the crossings of West and East, culture collisions, and the personal and universal histories that stay within.  Both artists grapple with the history of colonization, cross-cultural impacts, and immigration, stratified in Shin’s painted photo collages.” 

URL