Kyeok Kim A graduate of Metal Art & Design at Hongik University, Kyeok Kim acquired a Master’s degree at London’s Royal College of Art in 2006. Her jewellery, objects and installations have been shown in over 80 exhibitions across Europe and Asia, including the 2015 KOREA NOW exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Her much revered Second Skin series is housed at Seoul’s SNU Museum of Arts and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Kyeok Kim, following her jewelry studies at the Royal College of Art in London, began her research by observing the marks and imprints left on the skin by her jewelry. From this starting point, the artist began to devote herself to works made of copper wires woven in crochet and covered with Korean lacquer (ottchil) following the ancient techniques of her country. With a large installation of woven copper wire in 2021 Kim was a finalist for the prestigious Loewe Craft Prize.

This laborious practice, which metaphorically recalls the passage of time, is the basis of her Second Surface series, where vases and vessels inspired by the forms of Korean tradition are conceived as containers of past memories and experiences. Kim thus gives life to light elements that by distorting themselves create unusual forms that are on the one hand visible and tangible, and on the other hand able to deceive perceptions through illusory plays of light and shadow.