Having waxed lyrical about his work back in May, then it would be selfish of me not to share these new pictures of bodypainting artist Kim Joon’s (김준) that I happened to come across recently. Unfortunately though, they come from the lobby of the Jeonju Hite Beer factory (“전주에 있는 하이트 맥주 공장을 견학 하면서 바디 페인팅 광고가 눈에 들어와서”) rather than from a new exhibition, although on the bright side that opens the possibility that managers of Korean Starbucks branches might get similarly moved by the Starbucks version of his “branded” works.

I am still very interested in seeing an exhibition of his for myself though, but given that even Kim Joon’s own website doesn’t mention upcoming ones then it can be very hard to find any information about them in advance. And so I apologize, for after a little digging I learned that by complete coincidence a few new pieces of his work were actually being displayed in Daegu at about the time this photo was taken, as part of a wider exhibition entitled “From the Roots to the Being Now” (근원으로부터 현제까지), but unfortunately that finished two weeks ago.

By way of compensation then, let me direct you to the 2008 page of his website, where he does seem to have added several new images since I wrote that first post, and there are many more on the website of the Boxart Gallery in Verona, Italy, where there was an exhibition of his work in June and July. On top of that, here’s a 52 page PDF catalog of much of his work available as a zip file, here’s a description of the exhibition, below is yet one more recent work (source), and finally here’s a surreal 3D video of his from 2004 too, which I confess I don’t care for myself, but which will still probably be the strangest thing you and I will ever see while listening to what seems to be chanting from a Korean Buddhist temple.

Am I forgiven?^^ Seriously though, if any readers do ever hear about any upcoming exhibitions of his in Korea then please pass on the details, for considering how many there have been overseas just in the past year then his domestic appearances must be quite rare unfortunately.

(Slightly updated, August 2013)

Hat tip to the (sadly now defunct) Startdrawing.org. But you can still go directly to Kim Joon’s own website for hundreds more examples of his work. Here’s a small selection:

(Party-red Hole, 2007. Photo directly from Kim Joon’s website)

With apologies, I rejected posting examples with male subjects back in 2008, primarily because I didn’t particularly like Kim Joon’s choice of only stocky men or those lacking any muscle definition (as opposed to his choice of universally tall and skinny or athletic* women, a body type I admit I find both aesthetically pleasing and sexually attractive). I’ve since come to appreciate them though, and fortunately there’s still many 2005 examples available here. Also, he did start using more muscular male subjects a few years later.

(We-adidas, 2005. Source: 普若 安 )

Unfortunately, despite the plethora of websites that feature his work, very few give any specific details about how he actually makes his images, and him being described a “tattooist” left me rather confused: are they primarily tattoos, computer graphics, or both? From what I can make out from the “text” section of his site, different images required different techniques, but most of them were substantially changed on a computer after the original photos were taken.

(Photo directly from Kim Joon’s website)

Looking at his profile, he does live in Korea and has exhibited here often, and so I’ll try to keep tabs on when his next exhibition is coming up, although if any readers hear before me I’d be very grateful if they could pass it on. Also, have any readers already seen his work in person? What did you think? Did seeing the photos at a large scale make you like the art any more or less?

*I’ve also since come to realize that “athletic” is a misleading and inappropriate term for this body type, as athletes of both sexes actually come in all shapes and sizes. Can any readers suggest a better alternative?

(Update, November 2008: Here’s a follow-up post on later exhibitions of his work)