‘Coney Island : Paradise at the end of New York’
As a visual artist, I am interested in geometry and primary colors. I explore the fine line between reality and fantasy through the language of colors, which also empowers the viewers to travel those spaces. My work focuses on dressing hyperreal color to reality, to further challenge the boundaries of viewer’s imagination. Through constant negotiation of colors, images can be manipulated into many different forms. A slight change into romanticized color can take viewers to the imaginary paradise, thanks to chromatic diversity.
Coney Island can be often viewed as a condensed New York, and it is once refereed as “The heaven at the end of the subway ride”. As a popular spot for summer getaway, anyone can get on the subway to get here. It is extremely accessible to the general public for their known amusement park, beach, boardwalk and fast food. Even though all of the above represents the known reality, eliminating some aspects questions viewers to rethink their idea of somewhere where it can exist or not. Adding candy color to the familiar scenes in Coney Island, can romanticize the space as well. And all of sudden, this space becomes a wonder place filled with joy that doesn’t actually exist.
© Mijoo Kim, 2019