Joonhong Min (Born 1984, Seoul, South Korea, currently lives and works in London, United Kingdom)

Min works predominantly in mixed media which presents monochromatic installations and drawings that allude to architecture and space. His artistic inspiration comes from the fierce societal competition in the major cities. He is captured by these chronic feelings of anxiety which people are living with the obsession of success – falling behind in the competition and being alienated from others. The wish of the artist is to deal with this urban life anxiety through his works.

Min collected waste objects from the streets daily, then dissected their original forms and functions and reassemble theme in an artistic way. These disused materials, such as wrapping paper and building materials, used to compose cities and functioned as a part of people’s lives. However, they are now the dominant materials in Min’s artworks which the subject matter is the city. Through the creation, he makes three-dimensional installations to question how collective and personal urban memories embedded in founding objects alter the viewers’ perception of the city. The installation extends vertically and horizontally to bring up the image of buildings in cities. On the surfaces of these installations, Min unfolds his impression of cities with ink pen drawings. The consistent thickness of the line tightly drawn into hatches with ink pen fills the surface in an even manner particular to this medium. Unlike the various thicknesses of pencil and infinite colours of painting pigments, the monochromatic pen drawings are expressed by methodic composition of lines. Currently, the finished visual outputs are arranged in installations, which are a response to the real space and transformed as the images spread out to the flat field.

Min is an MFA graduate from Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. He grew his artistic roots from his experience living in this demanding and fast-paced society. Conforming to social norms as a daily routine has always given him deep anxiety. By working with familiar objects found in the streets of the city, Joonhong Min tries to express his impressions of the city as a sacred symbol of civilisation and the feeling of being superficial. He has exhibited works at the Royal Institute of the British Architects (RIBA), London (2016), the Consulate of South Korea Project Space, Milan (2014), Gallery Woosuk, Seoul (2012), Gallery C-Cloud, Seoul (2012). He has collaborated in group exhibitions at Slade School of Fine Art Summer Residency Show, University College London, London (2016), The Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2016), Jerwood Drawing Prize 2015 Exhibition, Jerwood Space, London (2015), New York Art Show, Gallery Shinhan, New York (2012) and forging the public memory through the dissolution, Gallery Unofficial Preview, Seoul (2012). Min was the winner of Applied and Fine Art, The Batsford Prize and the Cass Art Award in 2016. Min also won the Jerwood Drawing Prize in 2015 and was the first recipient of the Leonora Carrington Scholarship at University College London, The Slade School of Fine Art, London. Recently, Joohong Min has held a summer artist residency at the Slade School of Fine Art in 2016.