1.

You may say that the history of sculpture is, in a word, ‘a fight against materials'. Sculpture is the art of materials. The figures of sculptural works tends to be shaped mainly by materials. For this reason it can be said that sculpture has been developed as it always dealt with the evolution of materials and techniques. The materials appeared in the 20th century have dramatically changed the ways of expressing sculptural works.

 

Today, sculpture enters 'the era of various materials' from plastics, cement, and steel to light, transparent, and smooth materials. Modern sculpture accepts the omnidirectional methods in working techniques such as composition or piling in addition to 'planing' sculpture and 'pasting' molding. The style of Taesue Kim's sculptural works also raise the issues of materials and techniques. It is not possible to explain the true value of her works without their alchemy of materials and techniques.

 

Taesue Kim's ‘Eco Flow' series are welding sculptures. The working procedure having stainless steel as material are as follow: She cuts a basic outer frame—sprout or guttiform figures—into wide steel plates, bends the sheer steel plates like papers, and welds them with having the frame as buttress. The buttress and welding visors are at right angle. She adds volumes by accumulating steel planes in different heights. The work of a vollplastik is completed when the two buttresses that support this welding visors at right angle are erected vertically and combined zygomorphically. Accordingly, her sculptures have perfect bilateral symmetry with the buttress right in the middle as the center forming a basic frame of a figure. Consequently, Taesue Kim's sculptures have the shape of vollplastik, but the sense of plane underlies in their beginnings and processes.

 

Taesue Kim's works are plane sculptures. Vollplastiks are made by taking thin planes into basic units of sculpture. Transformation of a plane into a three dimensional structure! The repetitive composition of board planks, flexible curves, rhythmical swings. Even though her sculptures are physically real beings, the linear compositions of surface and optical color face provide us with strongly pictorial experiences. So to speak, it means that the experiences of three dimensional material mass come after two dimensional and pictorial experiences when you appreciate Taesue Kim's sculptures. Transformation of a plane into a three dimensional structure is interlocked with the remarkable technical advances such as welding, plastic deformation, cutting, and so on. And it owes to 3D graphics that exquisitely integrate the sculptress's plane drawings and three dimensional structures with paper. In other words, a system that reverts 3D graphics into planes and links them to modifying process is by virtue of a computer. I cannot help saying that Taesue Kim's works are meticulous sculptures in that she transforms a plane into a three dimensional structure and reverts them into planes.

 

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2.

Taesue Kim's ‘Eco Flow' series is polychrome. Traditional sculpture has emphasized the volume and mass of sculptural works. However, highly pure and intense colors such as red, blue, yellow, yellowish green, and so on in her works attract our sights. In history of modern sculpture, the moment of which coloring made an appearance as a new stream is after 1950s. Imposing coloring into sculpture was a sensational 'incident' that tore down the tradition of sculpture at a stroke in which the natural colors of sculptures were disclosed as they were. The background of coloring's appearance is also interlocked with a huge change of expanding materials and techniques of sculpture. Since this era, the frequency of utilizing complete products painted with paints, acryls, and synthetic resins and coloring materials such as plastics has been dramatically increased. Consequently, it can be said that coloring sculpture is a by-product of industrial and technical society.

 

Modern sculpture's averting its eyes into colors has a close relationship with reductionism that modernist art such as op-art and minimal art pursued. You may say that sculpture averts its eyes to the advanced painting. For instance, Anthony Caro's works maintains their sculptural structures and induces pictorial experiences at the same time. His sculptures looking straight up pressure all elements in the real space into orthostatics of paintings. His sculptures are close to ‘space drawings' pursuing the flatness of paintings. At this right point a critic, Rosalind Krauss, empathized that the acceptance of painting sculpture in sculptural arts is ‘pictorialism'.

 

It cannot be said a coincidence that Taesue Kim has expanded formative width in her works to vollplastics as well as reliefs. There are longings for two dimensional plains that fix as an image in her sculptural works. The nature of paintings is, unlike three dimensional arts, delivers immediately and integrally its content to the audiences appreciating art works. Surely, her reliefs have more remarkable appearance in ‘front looking composition' than her vollplastics. They are closer to ‘paintings' than ‘sculptures’. And they are to be ‘plane paintings' spreading on the buttress rather than ‘three dimensional structures'.

 

Taesue Kim's works pay attention to color and composition no matter whether they are vollplastics or reliefs. However, we should pay attention to the fact that the outer appearances of her works show another perspective different from traditional paintings. Their appearances are not immovable illusions, but possess the true nature as solid materials such as curves and shadows. Therefore, Taesue Kim's works present a phenomenal perspective in which the sculptures look differently in every moments as the audiences move. Here is the reason that her works have pictorial elements and can be interpreted differently from paintings.

 

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3.

‘Eco Flow' is literally ‘the flowing of ecology'. ‘Eco' indicates ’Ecology'. From the early period Taesue Kim has put the theme of ‘life' into her works. She has induced the figures that remind of a seed—a basic unit of life—and a ‘bud' just beginning to sprout into her works. The outer appearance of her works are not complete yet, but variable figures still in ongoing process. In other words, they are figures before they can be said figures. However, they are figures in the moment of never ceasing but pursuing and streaming toward new figures. They look plain, basic, and original figures which you might consider them as just seeds, fruits, or leaves. They also have appearances like anonymous lives that kick the earth hard and soar into the air.

 

Taesue Kim's sculptural concern is not fixed at the figure of this outer appearance. As mentioned earlier, she adds actively two dimensionally pictorial expression like rhythmical compositions of plane materials and coloring effects into her works. In addition to ‘Eco', the sculptural beauty of ‘Flow' is revealed at this point. This ‘Flow' induces ‘Eco' to a more dramatic situation. Its surface is interspersed with calm waves of water or streaming of a line like soft breeze. Like a scene in which the first bud of life spouts and grows, small figures generate soft waves in the form of fan ribs. Its expression might transcend a visible dimension to imply energy of life that may be just called ‘spirit'. In her recent works, she has been creating cyber images with different atmosphere by utilizing both circles (curves) and triangles (straight lines), different from natural figures.

 

Taesue Kim's ‘Eco Flow' is greatly transcending ‘Eco' which is in the narrow dimension such as simply ecology, environmental problems, and so on. ‘Eco Flow' is an open concept that the waves leave a micro world of lifespring and leads to a macro world in the universe. Her works transcend the visible phenomena of life and include invisible implication of life through wriggling organic sculptures. ‘Eco Flow' is a live wave of life.