Kim Joon

The original artwork BIRD LAND- ARMANI (2008) by contemporary South Korean artist Kim Joon.

Image from the artist's official website- http://www.kimjoon.co.kr/joon/bbs/board.php?bo_table=j_2008

 Kim Joon (1966-) can also be introduced as tattooist and nude body painter. This artist inspired me to look at the feminine ideal and identify the still existent taboos related to the naked female body through Korean eyes. Kim breaks away from traditional ideals of feminine beauty and fuses the East by West through powerful tattoo-like body painting in his artworks.

Kim Joon completed a Bachelors and Masters Degree in Painting at the renowned Hongik University in Seoul, South Korea. Now are professor, this artist creates never before seen stylish, elegant, and extraordinarily mesmerizing paintings on the nude body. Kim was originally a painter interested in investigating the dynamics and frictions that exist between the physical and psychological realms. However, he became interested in the techniques and beauty of tattooing during his studies at university and later on in the compulsory military service following his graduation.

 Kim describes his creations as paintings as the designs are made by mediums such as water-based markers. The artist still resonates through his artworks his initial fascination and interest in the tenstions of the body and mind. This idea goesn hand in hand with the artists' present fixation with body art. Kim is undoubtedly intrigued by the concept of the everlasting. The permanence of tattoos, tattooing as a means to marking one's soul.