Kim Joon is an artist from Korea who crafts exquisite composite photographs of the human form that are often heavily tattooed or patterned. Kim’s exploration of tattoo culture has its roots in his time in the military, where he tattooed his peers and, he references the practice in order to grapple with issues of taboo, image obsession, spirituality, and the aestheticization of the body. Kim Joon sees tattooing as a manifestation of the conflicting forces of all identity formation, which is a process of both determination and agency.
“I see skin, or in some cases the monitor, as an extension of the canvas,” Kim Joon says. Digitally applying the tattoos to his subjects, the artist creates a range of intricate patterns, from ancient designs to corporate logos and iconic works of modern art. The tattoos imprinted on the bodies indicate the desires of the individual, the collective, and of the era. These desires dominate not only people’s consciousness but even their unconscious, which Kim visualizes by materializing them. Other famous works by Kim are digitally fabricated images of porcelain body sculptures. By placing body parts tattooed with capitalistic symbols and icons on the tableware, Kim portrays the phenomena of how capitalistic desires put humans as objects of greed and voracity.
Kim Joon was invited to numerous solo exhibitions internationally, including "KIM JOON" at Musee Magnelli in Vallauris, France; "KIM JOON-CRASHING" at Waterfall Gallery in NY, USA; "KIM JOON" at Sundaram Tagore Gallery in HongKong; "Somebody" at Park Rue Sook Gallery in Seoul, Korea; "Moutai" at Space Can in Beijing, China; "fragile" at Canvas International Art in Amsterdam, Netherlands; and "Bird Land" at Sabina Lee Gallery in LA, USA, among many others.
Kim Joon's works traveled to many countries for the exhibition including "3rd International Digital Art Biennial" at Arsenal Art Contemporain in Montreal, Canada, "Frontiers Reimagined" at Giovanna Damiani in Venice, Italy; "My Blue China" at Manufacture Bernardaud in France; "TATTOO" at Brandts in Denmark; "The 3rd Jakarta Contemporary Ceramics Biennale" at Indonesia National Gallery in Jakarta, Indonesia to list some of the recent travels.
Kim Joon earned both BA and MFA from Hongik University in Seoul, Korea and currently working as a professor at Kongju National University.
