Dew Kim

Visual Description: Dew Kim’s pair of wall sculptures Till I Know What Love Is 01 & 02 depict metal arrows piercing human nipples cast in silicone. Iridescent strands of beads in delicate pearlescent colors of white and powder blue wrap around the arrow’s circular trajectory, interrupted by twisting cage finials. The sculptures are mounted to the wall with hooks.

Curatorial Description: Dew Kim’s pair of wall sculptures Till I Know What Love Is 01 & 02 depict arrows piercing human nipples cast in silicone. Typically wielded by biblical angels, here, these arrows seem to take on a life of their own. Iridescent strands of beads wrap around the arrow’s twisted trajectory like a fossilized milky substance. This relic-like work is fundamentally a scene of penetration and release. By isolating elements from the body of a follower being punished, Kim invites viewers to consider the BDSM dynamics within the Christian faith. As the son of a pastor, Kim often spent long hours in congregation and religious schooling in both Korea and the United States, often finding unspoken eroticism within moments such as envisioning bondage to a heavenly father or Biblical stories involving bodily harm or total submission.

About

Dew Kim (b.1985, Seoul, South Korea) received his MA in Sculpture from Royal College of Art, London, UK and BFA in Metalsmithing and Jewelry from Konkuk University, South Korea. Kim’s artistic practice is built on exploring various intersections of art, religion, and identity that lie in the critical point of change and collision. By using the process of destruction, in masochistic terms–which are both pain and pleasure–he focuses on how chastity training in the BDSM community allows the practitioners to transport and expand sexual desires by renouncing genital arousal and eroticizing the anus. This leads to a deconstruction of the signified body and creates a new language of sexuality that is beyond the phallocentric order.