Whether Joy Kim ’23 was drawing on the walls as an infant or more recently creating installations out of paper mache, she has always found a way to create art. Since second grade, Kim has been taking formal art classes, where she learned to incorporate her own experiences into her work. She hopes that when viewing her pieces, the audience sees art reflective of her individuality.
“What’s the point, if I just make things that have already been made? I don’t want mine to be a copy of someone else’s, [I want] my original thoughts. A lot of people think the same thing. But I want how I express it to be unique,” said Kim.
Although Kim’s favorite medium is painting, she has explored many alternatives over the years, including drawing, acrylics, and sculpture. Kim mentioned one notable acrylic painting in which she spent an extensive time in the “the ugly phase,” and how this lengthy process made the final result even more rewarding.
“There’s always this [ugly phase] where it just looks really bad and you don’t want to do it anymore. For me, [with] that piece, that period was the longest. I worked on it for two months and for the first two weeks, I just didn’t want to do it because it looked so bad. But then the end result I was really satisfied with,” said Kim.
According to Kim, she isn’t naturally a planner when it comes to future art projects and endeavors. While exploring art in college is a path she may explore, her current goal is trying new mediums and diving further into her creativity.
“I don’t really think that much before I start something, [which is] kind of a problem, because I never know what I’m doing with whatever I’m doing. I just want to try new things, [like] sculpture. I want to explore more of that, because I like it a lot,” said Kim.
