Biography

Woomin Kim is a South Korean artist currently based in Queens, NY. Through her textile and sculptural projects, she examines the active materiality of daily objects and urban landscapes.

Kim has participated in exhibitions and residencies at the Queens Museum, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Art Omi and Boston Children’s Museum. Kim has received fellowships and awards from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Noguchi Museum and Korean Cultural Foundation. Her works have been featured in The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Juxtapoz and BOMB Magazine. Kim holds a B.F.A from Seoul National University and received an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Artist Statement

I make quilts and textile installations that describe important and personal landscapes and objects.

Shijang Project is a series of large quilts that is inspired by street markets common in Korea. Each quilt depicts a vendor, such as a fish market, hardware store, shoe store, etc. Installed, the quilts hang all together right next to each other, in the middle of the space, reenacting the vibrancy and lively energy of an actual market. The installation offers a narrative of Korean and Asian marketplaces that is colorful, vibrant and celebrative; opposing the romantic and xenophobic Western version of them.

Recent textiles show a food table of my family’s ancestral ritual, stores and houses in Queens, NY, Buddha’s birthday lantern festivals and my high-school classroom. The non-linear references are collected from my memories of Korea, where I am from, and my observations of Queens, where I live now. Through the depiction of these moments of my life, I hope to empower unique and particular stories of individuals like me and reject the existing narratives of Asians and immigrants that are often inaccurately categorized, flattened and homogenized.