MJ Kim

34/98/5973

‘This Artwork Was Made to Fit A Diversity Quota’

Oil-based monoprint, acrylic, collage and charcol on paper

75cm x 75cm

2020

‘Artist’

Oil-based monoprint, acrylic, collage, stamps on paper

75cm x 75cm

2020

This series of artworks explores my place in the art industry as a young Asian Australian artist. I find that I will never be seen beyond my cultural identity; unable to be seen just as an artist in my own right without being categorised. I will never know if I am presented opportunities in my career simply to fit a diversity quota or because of my capabilities and talents. Is it possible for me to create art for art's sake, instead of everything being scrutinised as political or having my heritage brought into the equation? Even though I satirise these issues within the series, the work in itself is paradoxical. If anything, these works prove that it is virtually impossible for me to escape being political or controversial. This, however, also poses its own set of issues; am I uncomfortable with the label of an 'Asian' artist because I am uncomfortable in my own skin? Being born and raised in Australia, I have related more so to the white culture I was brought up in than that of my parents. However, I will never be seen as truly 'Australian'; despite being raised like every other Australian child. My patriotism feels like a shout in a void - much like these works. They are a pointless plea to white institutions who already have a preconceived notion of who I am and will not see me any different.

‘Two Months of Female Tragedy’

Acrylic, clay, wire, rubbish and medication from the artist’s personal life on found wood

128cm x 128cm

2021

Documentation by Kenneth Suico

The piece uses rubbish from my personal life to paint an intimate picture of my individual struggles during a two month period in 2021 with unhealthy sexual relationships with men and coping mechanisms. It follows the ethos that one’s discarded objects often are a more nuanced means to explore the socio-cultural and the personal than the items one keeps. Do we throw these objects away out of shame? Why are they shameful in the first place? What are the cultural and circumstantial alignments that make it so?

‘This is what I wish to do with the memories of you - rip them up and turn them into something beautiful’

Acrylic, vintage paper, canvas fabric, scrap fabric, polaroid, pearl beading, wire, ink on found wood

80.1cm x 80.6cm

2022

‘The well rounded man / the woman who bends over backwards’

House and acrylic paint, letraset, collage, wheatpaste on canvas and found wood

70cm x 58cm

2022

Exhibiting at City of Melbourne’s Library at the Dock (Docklands, Melbourne) from Feb 2nd - 12th 2023 as part of the ‘Grey’ exhibition

‘The well rounded man / the woman who bends over backwards’ is interested with the idea of 'white paintings' as a means to convey the liminality of sexual and romantic relationships. These paintings are radical geometric abstractions without reference to an external reality; yet are impersonal. Although it may initially seem like the wrong approach to medium when exploring troubles with sex due to its binary connotations and its perpetual flight from emotion and earnestness, I find it a vessel to play with surface level perceptions of gender imbalances in sexual and romantic relationships, in order to expose the socio-cultural and depths underneath. The artist’s hand is visible in the texture of the paint and in the subtle variations of the whites. The rectangle is not exactly symmetrical as a quaity of its found nature, and thus its imprecisely ruled boundaries have a breathing quality, generating a feeling not of borders defining a shape but of a space without limits. This is further implied through my transcendence of the rectangle boundaries of the work by incorporating other primary shapes which extrude out from the wooden panel foundation. White house paint has also been mixed with small amounts of black pigment to create the effect of a very subtle tonal difference. By doing so, I convey the space in between two dualities - one of the woman and one of the man. This is intended to create a sense of liminality between two dichotomous gendered tropes - of a woman who is confined to the socio-cultural gendered boundary of being subservient and serving, and a man who is confined to the idea of toxic masculinity; who is the provider and the sense of financial and emotional stability within a relationship. There is always room for the inbetween; for these dichotomies to be interchangeable or unapplicable. The same is applicable with my work's Bauhaus and neo-expressionist qualities. My work doesn't fully commit to either movement; being too textural for Bauhaus, and yet too clean to be completely neo-expressionist. Rather, they work together to encompass two entirely contradictory spectrums of 20th Century art and gender stereotypes.

‘An Unoriginal Painting (Not For Nick Cave)’

Acrylic on wood and a series of 16 wheat-pasted inkject photographs

Dimensions variable

2022

The work parodies Melbourne artist Jenny Watson’s 1979 work ‘An Original Oil Painting (For Nick Cave)’ - an artwork which Nick Cave held up then threw offstage during a performance of the song ‘Let’s Talk About Art’. This incident is now known as a pivotal moment in the merging of art and music within Melbourne’s punk scene. Watson’s artwork was parodied at a house party my housemates and I hosted, with 200 people attendance. At this party, we got eight Melbourne-based DJs and musicians to play gigs in our back area and kitchen. I wanted to parody the artwork here to create a connection with the subcultural past and the present of Barkly Street and wider Melbourne - seeing how I could re-stage the past. Moreover, I wanted to create an artwork with the same ephemerality, temporality and mythology of a house party; something that could only be experienced in one particular moment that cannot be recreated, and one in which is tied heavily to a particular geographic location and the psyche of the specific set of guests it hosts. I chose to conduct this artwork at my Barkly Street residence, as it has a long, extensive history - having been noted in the book ‘Urban Australia and Post Punk: Exploring Dogs in Space’ as being on the street known for its house parties, as shown in this excerpt from a chapter written by Simona Castricum which describes ‘...a couple sharehouses in Melbourne’s inner north; Fame Street and Barkly Street. Thosee partiese fufilled every criterion with distinction and created their own legends”. In the same book, it is also noted that two-story brick (as opposed to wood) terrace houses such as my own were bbuilt in the 1800s and usually were intended for a wealthier demographic - more specifically, those in which particularly profited from the Gold Rush. Knowing all these past histories, I was fascinated by how these houses known for their higher economic status have now become places of low-income student chaos. This was further exemplified when I discovered that the back alley of my Barkly Street residence was documented by social reformer F Oswald Barnett in the early 1930s during his campaign to rid Melbourne of its slums.

The idea of exploring the psycho-geographic and in particular - my own share-house - could attest to the house’s past and contradictions to its original intentions, and subsequently would be worth exploring in a re-staging. My share-house’s previous tenants were a group of eleven people in a two-story Carlton terrace, who were known for their partying lifestyle. As my housemates had to clean out the house after they left, there are still a few remnants of the previous tenants left in the house. For example, we still receive letters every week addressed to fake names, despite them not living there anymore. An item I found particularly interesting, however, was a diary I found in our kitchen from one of the previous tenants, which described recovering from hangovers, planning DJ sets, having a mix, ambitions to save money and do yoga every day, and meet with other Melbourne-based DJs. The house and housemates in which I reside with seem to be carrying on this legacy in our own way - with all nine of us being twenty-something creatives in some capacity; whether being actors, artists, musicians, or aninimators. I wanted to capture our own legacy through the work; while also exploring the coincidences shared with the house’s past.

‘(Trains For/Of Thought)’

Acrylic and house paint, wheat-pasted found images, stickers, coloured paper on found wood

Dimensions variable

2022

The piece ‘(Trains For/Of Thought)’ explores the inadvertant link between physical place and memory through five excerpts from my iPhone notes app, which were all thoughts I had had that happened to be linked to particular places or experiences in and around Melbourne; such as the Craigieburn line, mygov, my neighours, and the CBD. They are as follows:

Falling asleep on the craigieburn line
listening to Billie Holiday

These are all just words
Do they have to mean anything?

---------------

I’m a bit drunk and it’s 2:22pm on my 20th birthday
(I was born on Mother’s Day
The day my mother became a mother).
I always find birthdays to be disappointing
I want a nap but it feels like a waste
(It always feels like a waste of a day)
Maybe all I want today is a working pen or for someone else to check my mygov messages or to go to the post office for me

It’s a miracle the post office was closed today

I don’t feel like being an adult.

---------------

Today is one of those 14 degree days where you wish you owned more layers.
Maybe I should’ve done my laundry.

---------------

The person who shares my wall has been listening to 2010 top hits all morning. I have been awake since 3am. I am suprised to hear Jason derulo some nine hours later. The house smells suspiciously of weed. I hope my neighbour is having a good time. Usually he watches SBS at night. Sometimes he plays Bruce Springsteen.

I don’t know who he is, but I’ve met the guy who lives upstairs. He threw us down a joint one time from the window and said he was on an episode of Masterchef once. I wish him well.

Fuck he’s started playing nickleback

---------------

Melbourne is a flat city
Isn’t it convenient when we live in a two dimensional galaxy?

‘Simp Song’

Acrylic and sequin stickers on found wood

2.2m x 2.2m

2022

‘Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘N Roll’

Acrylic, condom, dental floss and balloon on found wood

Dimensions unknown

2022

‘How many weetbix do you have in the morning?’

Giclée print on Canson Arches Aquarelle Rag 310gsm

A1

2023

Exhibited at Second Space Gallery (Fitzroy, Melbourne) from Valentines Day - Feb 23rd 2023 as part of the ‘Clarity’ exhibition

This series of works linger on the inbetween space; of desiring but not knowing what you want. They are also places of isolation - ones which have the intensity of a vouyeristic gaze; the feeling of seperation and simultaneously near unbearable exposure. Why do we never embrace the liminality of our sexualites? We can desire someone or something, and still be unsure of ourselves when we find ourselves in the moment our desire is reciprocated. We can be around people but still feel lonely in our cravings for emotional intimacy; and yet, at the same time, seek boundaries from the emotional burdens caring for someone involves. The face in these works are obscured and made null - we can only interpret their body language; frozen without the medium of speech necessary to communicate, to be be understood. It is this linguistic instability which undermines from the comforting notion that word and object are securely attached - much like how the body can betray the mind and its set of complex and circumstantial wants and needs. The individual sits on a couch which invites others, but is ultimately alone; they are not dressed or posed in an inherently ‘sexual' way, and yet is alluring, invites fetishism. This is further conveyed by the medium - a Giclée print on a 310 gsm Canson Arches Aquarelle rag, which invites the viewer to touch with its sensuous, velvet quality to it and history of being used for wedding photography; and yet, everything about the medium resists. The paper is too delicate to be touched without wearing nitrate gloves, lest it be interferred with by a hand’s natural oils. The cool toned paper and exhibition context cautions. The couch featured within the work sustains this feeling of uncertainty, with it bearing Freudian connotations. Within this context, the couch is a means to reduce the natural tendency toward reassurance that is a built-in expectation of social discourse. The figure presented uses their body, couch and bed as simultaneously a buffer to and a site of attraction. The presence of another individual in the room is always inferred, and yet never explicitly depicted. Blue is used as a marker of simultaneously openness and sensitivity. It is ultimately the push and pull of intimacy which the piece concerns itself with, and urges the viewer to consider.

MJ KIM

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MJ KIM is an emerging production/costume designer, photographer and visual artist based in Naarm/Melbourne.

Photo by: Clem McNabb