TeaYoun Kim-Kassor, born in Korea and currently an Associate Professor of Art at Georgia College, has dedicated much of her diverse artistic career to the nature of identity, and the profound impact of migration on that fundamental personal question. With this exhibition, she presents two of her signature collections. In Migration Series, a traditional Korean sewing technique, nubi, provides the basis for delicately layered textiles which – like one’s identity, built up from countless experiences, places, and other people – are dimensionless, boundless, and defy perfect description. In Tension, Kim-Kassor takes this complexity of self a step further, physically and visually illustrating the constant push and pull on the fabric that constitutes our lives: our homeland can pull us back, while our destination pushes us forward. With so many forces of place, person, and purpose acting upon us, the result is a tensely warped but resilient canvas—blank, yet a universal portrait of individual human lives. 

 

TeaYoun has been an active artist internationally, with numerous exhibitions including at Sungshin Women’s University (Seoul, South Korea), University of South Carolina (Beaufort, SC), the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia (United States), Venice Printmaking Studio (Murano, Italy), La Macina di San Cresci (Florence, Italy), Textile Arts Center (Brooklyn, NY), Montana State University Gallery (Bozeman, MT), Maryville College Gallery (Maryville, TN), Black-box Theatre (Milledgeville, GA), and the Folklore Museum (Sendai, Japan), among others. Her work has been supported by the Folklore Museum in Sendai, Japan, the National Performance Network (supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, and the Nathan Cummings Foundation), CESTA in Tabor, Czech Republic, and Can Serrat in Barcelona, Spain.

 

When: May 6-31, 2016 (no RSVP required, M-F, 9 am-noon & 1:30-5:30 pm)

Where: Korean Cultural Center Washington, D.C. (2370 Massachusetts Ave. NW)