Jan Yongdeok Lim is an artist from Seoul who lives and works in Utrecht. His work combines painting with installation to explore ambivalent identities and social memories.
He wants painting to resemble poetry. A single word, sentence, material, or image, how it calls him and how his/our memories talk to it, becomes a painting. His artistic approach lies in a careful examination of the oscillating boundaries surrounding discordance, disparity, and chaosmos, which defamiliarizes by disassembling and reassembling. For him reality thus becomes a flexible expanse. Nothing stands still or can be taken for granted. This perspective guides him as he traverses from introspection of personal identity to societal identities both as a subject and as an attitude within his paintings.
His most recent series “The Remnants” explores what's left behind: the abandoned, the spilled and the discarded - a daily news report, one morning poem, a small talk with a stranger, a fragment of a train of thought. He speculates that these interests he has developed stem from enduring the long pandemic. The work captures these things and moments in a concise and swift touch between abstract and figurative.
Currently lives and works in Utrecht (NL)
Education
| 2015 | HKU University of the Arts Utrecht, Utrecht (NL), Master of Arts in Fine Art |
| 2012 | Seoul National University, Seoul (KR), Master of Science in Clothing and Textiles - Aesthetics in Dress Lab. |
| 2007 | Kookmin University, Seoul (KR), Bachelor of Fine Arts - Major: Fashion Design / Minor: Painting |
Selected Exhibitions / Performances / Researches
| 2025 | 'HandLamb', a Field in the Hills of Transylvania, Reghin (RO), group |
| 2024 | 'The Second', UNAgaleria / UNArte, Bucharest (RO), group |
| 2024 | 'Cultural Superhighway', Salon de Kunst, Amsterdam (NL), group |
| 2023 | ‘Landwehrkanal’, Molt, Berlin (DE), group |
| 2023 | ‘Open Studios’, GlogauAIR, Berlin (DE), group |
| 2023 | ‘Pain In The Ass’, GlogauAIR showcase, Berlin (DE), solo |
| 2022 | ‘The Second Hands’, MNAC, Bucharest (RO), performer/ researcher |
| 2020 | ‘Boven De Bank’, Gallery Logman, Utrecht (NL), group |
| 2018 | ‘Spoor’, Pilotenkueche, Leipzig (DE), group |
| 2018 | ‘Speech Bubble’, Alte Handelsschule, Leipzig (DE), group |
| 2018 | ‘Rutschbahn’, Krudebude, Leipzig (DE), group |
| 2018 | ‘I Accept The Cookies’, Kunstraumpingpong, Leipzig (DE), group |
| 2018 | ‘This Must Be The Pacific Place’, Vriend van Bavink Gallery, Amsterdam (NL), group |
| 2018 | ‘Disclosed #13: HONOLULU’, Het Wilde Weten, Rotterdam (NL), performer |
| 2017 | ‘Open Studios’, SWK030, Utrecht (NL), group |
| 2017 | ‘The Final Report Presentation’, The Creative Centre HERE, Stöðvarfjörður (IS), group |
| 2017 | ‘To Seminar : Sleeper’, BAK basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht (NL), performer/ researcher |
| 2016 | ‘Rethinking HOME_Koneksi-Connectie’, Nieuw Dakota, Amsterdam (NL), performer |
| 2015 | ‘Tomorrow, I May Disappear’, MaHKU graduation show, Academiegalerie, Utrecht (NL), group |
| 2015 | ‘Before You Ask Me To Stay’, Pavilion Sala del Camino, 56th Venice Biennale, Venice (IT), group |
| 2014 | ‘A Creature Called Soft Machine’, IMPAKT Festival, Academiegalerie, Utrecht (NL), group |
Residencies
| 2024 | Somos arts, Berlin (DE) |
| 2023 | GlogauAir, Berlin (DE) |
| 2018 | Pilotenkueche, Leipzig (DE) |
| 2017 | The Creative Centre HERE, Stöðvarfjörður (IS) |
On-site work
| 2021 | ‘Assumption of Mary’, Yeongun cathedral, Cheongju (KR) |
| 2019 | ‘The Resurrection, At First Eye Contact’, Hwangan cathedral, Yeongdong (KR) |