So Young Kim

London, Singapore, and Seoul-based artist, So Young Kim (b. 1991) explores and examines the distortion of images and objects she has intuitively collected through internet web-browsing. Her juxtaposed images and icons from various sources across the internet are whimsically expressed through vibrant and powerful colours in her own playful compositions. 

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The images she collects can range from the iconic, things that everyone is likely to recognise, down to nothing more than some random scribbles. Everything that we could possibly visually experience from the internet platform can be included in her collecting activity.  

So Young started collecting 'images of objects' after being influenced by a well-known German philosopher, Hito Steyerl's idea of the 'image as an object.' Steyerl writes that the “image should no longer be seen as emblems of objects but as objects themselves.” 

So Young manipulates images of her collection through editing, deleting, and distorting on digital platforms, and these distorted images become the subjects on her canvas. As she paints, she restores the resolution of these poorly cropped edited images, and at the same time, these images no longer exist as fragments of something but as an original. 

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So Young has completed her Master's degree in Painting at the Royal College of Art (UK) in 2022.