Lot 1539: KIM JOON

KIM JOON
(B. 1966)
Stay-Snow White
signed and titled 'Kim Joon; Stay Snow White' in English; numbered '4/5' (on the reverse)
chromogenic print
87.5 x 150 cm. (34 1/4 x 59 in.)
edition 4/5
Executed in 2007

Verona, Italy, Box Art Gallery, Tattoo Dimension Exhibition, 7 June-31 July, 2008.

Box Art Gallery, Verona, Italy
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2008.

"I am interested in tattoo as a metaphor for hidden desire or a kind of compulsion engraved into human consciousness. I see the skin, or in some case the monitor, as an extension of a canvas. My earlier tattoo paintings were three dimensional canvases in the form of lumps of flesh or parts of a body, such as a muscular arm. Tattoos can reflect individual and collective reality or displace desire."
Kim Joon

The vivacious palette of aquatic blue merges the visual motifs that should assume the three dimensionality of the environment in Stay- Snow White (Lot 1539). The sofa and the background are fused in the same intoxicating color, seemingly flattening the composition in an odd solidity- a peculiar atmosphere classically seen in Surrealism. Kim Joon describes moments of psychic intensity, conditioning it on the skin of the headless protagonist, directing all focus on the engraved patterns to narrate the fairytale of Snow White; its innocence overturned on the bare skin of a submissively seated female, reluctant yet subtly tempted by the erotically crimson hand, parallel to the wicked mother's poisonous red apple.

The relationship between the two body is a schism between two types, domestic and active, evil and innocent, apparent in the characters of the tale and in society; but what Kim strives to narrate in his fantasy realm is a mutual dialogue between their sexual deviance and social transgression, hence, faithfully dedicating the scene to the convulsive beauty of surrealist photography. Akin to the mannerism of Surrealism's reality and fantasy, the constant death and resurrection of Snow White is also profoundly implicative of a spiritual awakening, moreover chances provided to reflect, in which Kim knowingly adopts its story to bond the symbolic purpose of tattoo as a reflection on identity- expression of one's individuality and status. Determined to illustrate the efficient function of tattoos as a mode of psychological awareness and as a channel for liberation of an individual's oppressed desire, Kim extracts the deeply rooted human consciousness and voyeurism in Disney animation to exploit the utopian characteristics of animation, re-emphasizing again of the space between dream and reality; confinement and liberation of conventional beliefs in his personal means to resurrect and reflect on his true inner psyche behind the taboo walls of society.