Kyungmi Shin

Kyungmi Shin is a visual artist who works across painting, sculpture, and photography. Her installation works have been profoundly influenced by her experience of building a studio home in Ghana, West Africa in 2005. Her intention was to build an affordable vacation home in a tropical landscape, which then became an opportunity for her to examine feelings of fear, guilt, and prejudice and also learn about the relationship between developed and underdeveloped parts of the world. She shifted the focus from the investigation of perception and personal identity to the study of the effects of global economic connections in 2007. Through creating photo collages, videos, and sculptural installations, she investigates global connections by examining the rituals, myths, and physical evidence of the inter-connectedness between developed and underdeveloped nations as well as the effects of globalization. Shin's artistic practice extends beyond the visual arts and she has developed a public art practice that involves listening to and learning from the community, history, and nature of a particular site. By conducting thorough research on the natural and cultural history and the current context of a site, she creates artworks that imbue meaning to the location and engage the viewers imagination. ...

Various Small Fires (Los Angeles /Dallas /Seoul) began as a series of conversations with artists and curators in Esther Kim Varet’s Venice Beach kitchen while working on her doctoral dissertation. VSF debuted in Hollywood as an official gallery in 2015 with a roster of artists and its current Johnston MarkLee Architects-designed building. The Hollywood gallery contains three exhibition spaces, a unique sound corridor, and an outdoor gallery. VSF’s exhibition program explores several curatorial lines: climate, equality, and an international conversation. The gallery is known for offering artists debut shows, creating intergenerational conversations among the artists on its roster, and solidifying artists’ legacies within art history. In 2019, VSF opened a second location in the Hannam neighbourhood of Seoul, South Korea, followed recently this Spring by VSFs third outpost in Dallas, Texas. While Varet has very personal connections to both locations, they are also superlative art communities. These expansions emphasise the gallery’s commitment to innovation and global dialogue in the twenty-first century. In 2021, VSF became a member of the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA). ...