Following all CDC’s and government guidelines, please register directly through our Eventbrite

“I love to contemplate myself in silence. As a human, who will still be incomplete until dying, I need to reflect, consider, and be aware of myself to grow up. I have been strongly attempting to look at myself through an objective lens. All the process of my work stimulated me to contemplate my values which had dominated me and ones which were not. I might be overcoming, changing, adapting, or compromising myself towards what I hadn’t actually valued.”
–– Ji Eun Lim

Perception of Ji Eun, by Hannah Eve Rothbard

On view at One Art Space from June 3rd to June 6th, 2021, Perception of Ji Eun brings together artworks made during the last three years that encompass a thorough investigation into the visual simplification of complex emotion by artist Ji Eun Lim. Through her research-based, extensively planned, yet minimalist compositions, Lim explores the contradictions of human personality and expression as they manifest in herself and others.

Lim’s journey into abstraction begins with representation, specifically the characters of both the Korean and English alphabets. Lim extracts shapes from the characters that spell out her name in both languages, synthesizing the two languages to create one of her own, only readable to few. Reflecting on her experience growing up in South Korea versus the culture shock she experienced upon moving to the United States, Lim’s process is characterized by nuance; though, through it she finds clarity and wholeness. 

The exploration continues with playful arrangements of these new characters. “임지은 (LIMJIEUN),” presents the first iteration, making use of painted line on canvas before shifting to solid shapes on cardboard. Lim’s interest in cardboard emerged upon observing her students’ excitement and eagerness to experiment with the material. With this spirit of play, the artist repurposes the cheap material to create fine art that embodies the harmony between her youthful energy and artistic maturity. 

Furthermore, Lim’s work on cardboard embodies the irony of her consumption habits through the reuse of boxes first used to ship things she purchased online. Rather than an empty attempt at sustainable behavior, Lim’s repurposing of cardboard acknowledges the difficulty of changing one’s habits. Boxes piled up in Lim’s apartment during the last year as a result of the pandemic, serving as a constant reminder of her self-contradictions and the minuscule scale of her workspace. Despite having to work small, Lim’s practice has evolved into the third dimension. Working in pieces, Lim creates spatial arrangements that further abstract her characters into geometric forms resembling blocks or stones.

Yearning for social connection, the pandemic also prompted the artist to move beyond introspection and explore the contradictions in other people’s behaviors and expressions. “Mask” and “Sincerity” juxtapose colorful, dynamic compositions with monochrome, static shapes to depict the gap between human complexity and the facade often projected to the world. Departing from her disciplined adherence to old techniques, Lim has begun to embrace freedom, loosening her compositions and expanding her color palette.

Ji Eun Lim is an artist and art educator based in New York from South Korea. She obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communication Design and Masters of Education in Fine Art in Seoul, South Korea as well as a Masters of Arts in Teaching from the School of Visual Arts in New York.