Kim Shinwook graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at Goldsmith University (2012), and completed a master’s degree in the Department of Fine Art Photography at Royal College of Art (2012). He received a doctorate in Fine Art at the University of East London (2021). He has been working as an exclusive artist at CE Contemporary in Milan.
While studying in UK, Kim Shinwook had two solo exhibitions at MOKSPACE(London, UK) in 2012 and the Korean Cultural Center UK(London, UK) in 2015.
He started to build an artistic career with his solo exhibition at SPACE 22 (Seoul, Korea) in 2018. He was very much to the fore in the scene through the series of ‘Unnamed Land: Air Port City, 2015~2020’ that was exhibited several times in Seoul and Busan.
The exhibition, which recently opened at the CE Contemporary Gallery(Milan, Italy) is his first solo exhibition in Italy and showcases a series of ‘In Search of Nessie, 2018~2020’. The exhibition ran through May 10, 2022 in Milan, Italy.
Group Exhibitions (Brief)
Kim Shinwook has participated in a wide range of group exhibitions held at Korean Cultural Centre Belgium(Brussel, Belgium), Seoul Art Space Geumcheon(Seoul, Korea), Palazzo Tagliaferro Museum(Andora, Italy) and Buk Seoul Museum of Art(Seoul, Korea).
Awards (Selected)
Kim Shinwook received the 12th Ilwoo Photography Award(Ilwoo Foundation, Korea), the 7th Amado Photography Award(Amado ArtSpace, Korea) and British Institution Award(Royal Academy, UK). He has been selected the final artist of the year of the 10th KT&G SKOPF(KT&G Sangsangmadang, Korea).
Collections (Selected)
His works are in collections of museums such as Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts(Kiyosato, Japan), GoEun Museum of Photography(Busan, Korea), Oxford Oriel College(Oxford, UK), KT&G Sangsangmadang(Seoul, Korea) and Seoul Metropolitan Government(Seoul, Korea).
Originality & Identity
The artist Kim Shinwook is a meticulous observer and collector who constructs a macro worldview but also delves into details. He has mainly discovered and recorded invisible things, observing steadily with specific places and memories.
Especially, he has put an effort into searching an ambiguous landscape view and its nearby scenery to awaken various perspectives.
Kim Shinwook is called an artist who never manipulates the subject but captures the sceneries with a tranquil view. However, it is prone to reality-based, unstable, and severance that the artist wanted to show, rather than a clear and lucid world.
The research archives spur the audiences’ imagination by delivering storytelling amplified resources that are recomposing into multi-dimensional perspectives (reflecting fiction from time to time), not just only flat surface visuals.
“The hidden story comes to mind when you approached the image, and is eventually composed into a worldview that is connected one by one”
In Kim Shinwook’s artworks, several characters appear such as the surrounding landscape, the borders of countries and regions, and imaginary monsters and extinct animals that never existed before. It gives a vivid impression and freshness to audiences. Here, what arouses the audience is that the artist focuses on his experience and interest springing from personal imagery.
The artist’s works highlight not only personal experience but also the social atmosphere and historical traces not far from our stories and our world. Hence, his art world has created an individual and social area in between, and further interpretations are also boundless.
Style & Contents
Kim Shinwook provided airport pick-up service to travelers back and forth from Heathrow airport in London. The artist naturally had an interest in the scenery around the airport and the people there. The ‘Airport’ series started in 2013, but the project established its base in 2017, approaching photography type and methods as they are shown today.
Kim Shinwook’s previous works are contemplative typological photographs that are strongly connected with his memory and mentality. He started to make a relation between characters in the artwork and engaged deeply with the landscape with adequate distance from the scenery.
The airport, which exists like an island outside the city and encroaches on the surrounding area, is the center of producing an alienated periphery while crossing boundaries connecting the different areas. The artist caught the social issues hidden beneath in the real world, between the airport scenery and the people. It is expressed in his artworks with a serene view.
Current works (from 2021 to 2022) focus on the disconnection and severance that appeared in the modern and contemporary history of South Korea through the Korean war and division. Starting from the feeling of displacement and the memory of his father and his experience in North Korean families, the artist traces the historical legacy of the old Donghaebukbu-line and the whereabouts of missing Korean tigers with the attitude of a cultural anthropologist and ethnographer.
Observation and time collection, what the artist has stuck to his work, and collection, recording, and classification are the methods of his never changed mindset. Still, his art worldview is hidden, but it seems definite to exist around us. The collected materials and the breadth of his research represented the residue of imagination and reality.
Constancy & Continuity
Kim Shinwook is an artist who has received attention since his early debut. While he was in England, his domestic popularity continued steadily. Also, he was awarded ‘The British Institution Award(2013)’ prized by Royal Academy, and ‘The Young Portfolio contest program(2017)’ selected from the Kiyosato Museum of Photography, Japan, which collects and displays the works of photographers under the age of 35. As a contemporary young artist, he got great attention from various countries.
Kim Shinwook’s critical view as a new artist from the outside fosters assessing future Korean photography not just a fragmented and temporal attention. In fact, the artist’s award career has continued in Korea since then.
His artworks are collaborative with domestic and international attention in terms of worldwide topics he has dealt with. The topic he is currently focusing on are universal ones applied to any country and any ethnic group in the world such as migration and disconnection due to the war, but also scrutinize as a special case of the division of the Korean Peninsula.
Participating in various exhibitions in the UK for over 10 years, Kim Shinwook has collaborated worldwide with multi-cultural artists and curators.
He not just applied conventional photographic media but also experimented with diverse methods and techniques, Kim’s art and art activities arouse an international outlook crossing the photography and art world.
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"2023 Chilgok International Transmedia Festival" on View Through November 5, 2023, at Yetae Art Museum & Hyangsa Art Center
The “2023 Chilgok International Transmedia Festival,” a festival featuring 18 artists, including Kim Shinwook, Kim Taedong, Mioon, and Tom Bull, will hold its first edition from October 6 to November 5. The festival is centered on the theme exhibition The Poetry of Land will be held at the Yetae Art Museum and Hyangsa Art Center. The festival also consists of special exhibitions and side events held around Chilgok, including the Chilgok Patriots & Peace Memorial and Honey Bee World.
The festival centers on the word “trans” by highlighting Chilgok as a region where diverse cultures are exchanged and exploring the transmedia. In line with this, the theme exhibition The Poetry of Land seeks to understand the local features of the Chilgok region from the perspective of the Anthropocene, including the Nakdong River, which served as a defense line for the Korean War and is home to numerous plants and animals.
Kim Taedong’s photographs < PLANETES >, which can be seen at Yetae Art Museum, are a series of photographs taken at various locations in Chilgok. The photographs were taken with an astronomical device, which is used to photograph stars. The landscapes in the photographs are as shaky as the trajectory of the star’s movement.
