Secondary Market
Kim Byung-Jin
South Korean, born 1974
Kim Byung-Jin (born Seoul, 1974) is a South Korean sculptor whose glossy steel forms — hearts, apples, vases — are built from hundreds of welded letters and logos. From afar they read as a single object; up close they become a dense web of words, finished in kiln-baked car paint.
Biography
Kim Byung-Jin was born in Seoul in 1974 and trained as a sculptor at Suwon University, where he received his BFA in 2003 and his MFA in 2009. His early work, shown in his first solo exhibition at the Insa Art Center in Seoul in 2008, used bent steel wire to draw lines in space.
Two images in one
His mature sculptures are built from countless steel letters, words and logos, cut and welded into a single silhouette: a heart, an apple, a vase. From a distance the eye sees the object; up close it reads the text that composes it, and the viewer moves back and forth between the two. Titles such as Apple-love or Pottery-lucky pair the form with the word that runs through it.
An automotive finish
After welding and hand-sanding, the steel receives several layers of high-grade car paint, each baked at around 200°C in a kiln. The result is a seamless, lacquered skin stretched over an openwork lattice of letters.
Exhibitions
Kim received an Excellent Award at the first POSCO Steel Art Award in 2006. His solo exhibitions include Framing Effect at Gallery Jinsun, Seoul (2011), Unfamiliar Shadow at the Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art (2013) and Continues Monologue at Blank Space, New York (2014). Group exhibitions have taken him to the Pohang Museum of Steel Art and the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art (2010), the Seoul Museum of Art (2012), Opera Gallery Singapore (2015) and Be My LOVE at the Avenuel Lotte Tower Gallery in Seoul (2016), the year he was also shown at Art Wynwood in Miami. His sculptures have been sought for hotel lobbies across Asia.