korean artist kim jung gi

Visual artist Kim Jung-gi poses in the hall of his solo exhibition, "Kim Junggi, The Other Side," at the Lotte Museum of Art (LMOA) in Seoul, May 3. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

The first-ever large-scale solo exhibition showcasing more than 2,000 works of the visual artist held at the Lotte Museum of Art

By Park Han-sol

On a vast stretch of blank paper, the black tip of an ink brush moves freely and spontaneously with no sign of hesitation. The 10-meter-wide empty white space is gradually filled up with distinct scenes of both fantasy and reality: wolves fiercely biting into an endless string that extends across the canvas, naked rows of human bodies partially covered with animal hides and a baby keeping a tight grip on a fish almost as big as his arm. When observed closely, the seemingly chaotic mix of animals and humans visualizes a feeling we all know too well ― insatiable desire.

The intricate work is part of pioneering visual artist Kim Jung-gi's ongoing live drawing performances at his solo exhibition, "Kim Junggi, The Other Side," at the Lotte Museum of Art (LMOA) in Seoul. The exhibition showcases more than 2,000 pieces of his drawings, large-scale paintings and videos spanning three decades.

Kim performs at a live drawing session at the LMOA, May 3. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

In fact, Kim's name and creative identity are inseparable from his live drawing. His live performances are what propelled the 46-year-old artist to worldwide fame back in 2011 at the Bucheon International Comics Festival (BICOF). It was then that he, instead of submitting completed works like most other creators, decided to cover the entire wall of his booth with blank sheets of paper and then just started drawing.

There were no rough sketches or preplanned works in sight ― just Kim, his memories and his boundless imagination. Viewers were mesmerized as they watched him effortlessly transferring images from his visual memory straight onto the paper without a second thought.

The YouTube video that documented the incredible feat in time-lapse soon went viral, allowing Kim, who mainly worked as a cartoonist and a "webtoon" illustrator, to venture into an entirely new creative realm. The next year, he was invited to the European animation festival, Strasbulles, in France, and since then, invitations from countries such as the U.S. and China for live drawing performances, collaborations, exhibitions and lectures have continued to pour in.

After watching him work for hours, his close friend and colleague once told Kim that he "doodles as if he were excreting."

"I give free rein to my brushstrokes to bring to life any object, human, environment or feeling, however raw or undesirable," the artist said. "Before my name was largely known, I also used to sneak in socially tabooed images here and there, without feeling the need to filter them."

Kim likes to finish a large portion, if not all, of the drawing in one sitting. Typically, if the work features familiar objects or topics of his interest, a one-meter-long by one-meter-wide canvas densely packed with unique shapes and forms will be done in less than half a day.

"Usually, with up to 60 or 70 percent of the images I intend to draw already stored in my mental database, I just extract the visual information onto the paper as I go," Kim told The Korea Times in a recent interview, while conjuring up an image of a boar-like creature on a piece of scrap paper in just 15 minutes.

The formation of his immense mental database, or what Kim calls his "memory library," began when he was as young as six years old. On a sketchbook that his father gave him, he began not only copying cartoons and comics that he liked, but also the objects of his childhood dreams.

"Sneakers, a bicycle, a motorcycle… It began with an obsession for things I wanted to have but couldn't," he said. "For the type of running shoes I wanted, I would collect their photos in magazines, closely observe my friend's pairs and touch them to learn their shapes from different angles. I would then turn them into drawings that I could own."

Watching his favorite sneakers come to life in his sketchbook, his interest began to shift towards other types of shoes, from his mother's high heels to his father's boots, and later, to their feet and eventually, to the human body itself. This tenacious focus on his subjects and endless drawing practices became the groundwork for his current creative endeavor.

"Life _ Death, Heading towards a Future Somewhere" (2018) by Kim Jung-gi / Courtesy of Kim Jung-gi

After the still and moving images he observes on film and TV, as well as on the street, are catalogued into his mental archive, pulling them back out onto the blank sheet of paper takes a mere second.

"For example, if I were to draw a platypus, I would pull out from my memory an image that I once saw on the National Geographic channel, or on KBS' 'Animal Kingdom.' And from there, any other animal that could be associated with the creature ― beavers, raccoons ― can subsequently be found in an instant. I would then mentally turn these fragments into three-dimensional images and start interconnecting them with other characters on the canvas to form a coherent narrative."

But his visual memory isn't an ever-lasting database, Kim noted. The images of complex machinery or creatures start to slip through his fingers if he doesn't draw them for months. And new technological advances lead to never-before-seen images of inventions like smartphones or electric vehicle motors. Therefore, for the artist, a daily ritual of updating the "memory library" with old and new visual information remains crucial.

Thanks to his colossal mental database, Kim has also been involved in a number of collaborations and commercial projects, both in and outside of the country.

His drawings depicting Bong Joon-ho's award-winning "Parasite" film (2019), Netflix original series "Stranger Things" (2019) and video game developer Blizzard Entertainment's "World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth" (2018) are some of many such projects on display at the LMOA. The artist has also worked on cover art for Marvel and DC Comics, as well as created a character for legendary comic book writer Stan Lee's posthumous audiobook, "A Trick of Light: Stan Lee's Alliances" (2019).

Kim's "Parasite" (2019) on display at the LMOA / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

Kim's "World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth" (2018) on display at the LMOA / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

The biggest appeal of his live drawing is, of course, its spontaneity, coupled with his active interaction with the viewers. He sometimes starts his performance by asking audience members to make suggestions on what to draw and transfers it to paper on the spot.

Such conversations aren't just one-off events. Even in the midst of working on a massively complicated piece, Kim effortlessly answers any questions thrown at him from his legions of fans, and manages to crack jokes without taking his eyes off of the canvas.

As a result, each of his live drawing sessions at the LMOA exhibition, held every Monday and Thursday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and then again at 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., is joined by dozens of Korean fans onsite as well as hundreds worldwide through live streams on Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, despite the time difference.

"Other artists would usually lead a solitary fight during their creative process. I also enjoy drawing alone, but it's equally fun to hold an engaging conversation with audience members."

"The Sun and the Moon" (2021) by Kim Jung-gi / Courtesy of Kim Jung-gi

Within Kim's drawings, elements that are at odds with each other ― tradition and technological advances, life and death, a diver in space and an astronaut in the sea ― all occupy the same canvas, creating a bizarre harmony. His recent piece, "The Sun and the Moon," is no exception.

In the folk tale of the same title, one day, a tiger eats a widow on the mountain and then arrives at her house in disguise to eat her two children. When the girl and the boy see through the tiger's trick, they pray for a rope from the sky, which they climb onto and become the sun and the moon.

In Kim's own interpretation of the tale, images of the distant past, present and future all appear side by side. While the story seems to be set in the Joseon era, the present-day icons of McDonald's, Gucci and Air Jordan shoes sneakily make appearances. The rope at the end of the story takes a futuristic turn as it becomes a rocket that sends the children to the moon and the sun. Instead of creating an unpleasant visual conflict, these images that belong to different time periods transform the narrative into a timeless one.

"The Sun and the Moon" is also one of the first artworks that allowed Kim to explore a new medium ― hanji, or traditional Korean paper made from the bark of paper mulberry trees.

"Up until now, I've been using watercolor or drawing paper from Europe. When I draw, it feels like the ink is just sitting on top of the surface, almost to the point that I feel like I can just brush it off," Kim explained. "But hanji is very different. It fully absorbs the ink, allowing dark shades to be richer and heavier. And the paper seems to hold each of my strokes properly in place."

Thanks to the nature of the paper, even if it is crumpled or ripped to a certain extent, one can restore it by applying water. To the artist who travels in and out of the country on a regular basis, hanji's durable quality has proven to be quite useful. He hopes to incorporate more new materials into his future artworks.

Without a grandiose plan in mind, Kim wishes to continue to enjoy filling the white space that lies ahead of him "like the king of the blank sheet of paper, the universal creator."

"I would love to draw with my hand until the moment I die. From the tingling sensation I get when my skin brushes past the paper's surface and is smeared with ink, to the rush of pleasure I feel when I watch my brushstroke taking an unexpected turn, I love everything about it."