The artist Kim Eull’s name in Chinese characters is 金乙, using the character eul (乙), meaning ‘sprout’ or ‘shoot.’ His father—who studied in Tokyo during the Japanese colonial period but returned to his hometown to live as a Confucian scholar—gave this name to his eleventh and youngest child. “Live freely, like a bird in flight,” was his intention, a phrase that seems to have remained a lifelong koan for the artist.
 
Kim Eull depicts himself through painting, drawing, and objects, and at times transforms himself into the figure of a bird. One such bird—its head modeled after the artist himself and its body shaped like a bird—sheds a single tear. Suspended just before it falls, this tear has become one of the artist’s most significant motifs.

Located in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, Kim Eull’s studio is densely filled with completed works as well as objects that are yet to become works, so much so that even a full day would not suffice to take everything in. While some of his works reach architectural scale, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the core of his practice lies in small drawings. Although drawings are often considered preparatory sketches, Kim Eull’s drawings appear as autonomous works in their own right.

Often accompanied by Korean, English, or classical Chinese text, sometimes marked by a single brushstroke, incorporating nearby objects, or bearing Post-it notes and labels (which themselves become part of the work), his drawings are the products of sustained reflection on the nature of art—and of the pain of repeated failure. At times, he confesses the urge to strike his work, exclaiming “You damn painting!” and dreams aloud of “a joyful world that doesn’t need painting.”

Kim Eull has said that he goes to his studio “as if risking his life.” Having chosen the path of the artist, he excluded from his life many of the elements enjoyed by ordinary people, living solely through his work. During periods of extreme financial difficulty, he worked as a day laborer at construction sites. Possessing both physical strength and manual skill, he quickly rose from general ‘laborer’ to ‘foreman’, and eventually to ‘oyaji’, overseeing entire building projects. While working, he resolved that he was not simply doing temporary labor, but truly engaging in manual work, while aspiring to become an artist in the time that remained.

After building roughly seventeen houses, he finally gained the means to construct—by his own hands—a studio in Yongin where he could devote himself fully to art. One of his works recreates his studio itself as an installation that viewers can enter, a moment in which his construction skills are directly translated into his artistic practice.

Kim Eull calls his studio the ‘Twilight Zone.’ Accordingly, the work bears the abbreviated title TZ Studio. What does it mean for a studio to exist in the boundary between day and night—the time when dogs and wolves are indistinguishable, when the sunset brings both unease and a sense that the day is slipping away? Was the artist seeking to capture this dusk-like atmosphere within his workspace, or is it a metaphor for the remaining time in his life? This ambiguity is deliberately left unexplored.

He goes—“risking his life”—to the “Twilight Zone Studio”, where he spends the majority of his time. Though the phrase may sound exaggerated, it rings true. Construction work has completion dates; office jobs have paydays, beginnings and endings marked by ceremonies.

The artist’s time flows differently. A work that seemed complete one day may be rejected the next. Even unfinished works must eventually face the bright lights of the exhibition space and the unpredictable judgments of viewers. To enter the studio while fully aware of this fate is a psychologically arduous journey, which Kim Eull likens to climbing a mountain.

In Untitled, the studio precariously perches atop a jutting rock, accessible only by a long, winding ascent.

In the 2019 watercolor TZ Studio, the journey begins at a skull-shaped warning sign, winds past waterfalls and half-built structures, and culminates in a sheer rock face. From this peak—resembling an outstretched finger—the artist works before descending once again. One is compelled to ask: what is art, that it demands such effort?
 
Tears permeate Kim Eull’s work. Whether born of joy or sorrow, tears are the outward manifestation of human emotion. He collects them in abundance: tears flow down walls, fall from skies, and are carefully stored in drawers.

A figure seated atop a truck laden with tears is none other than Kim Eull himself. His face—simple, spherical, marked by paired smile lines—is instantly recognizable. The image resonates universally: who among us does not carry a truckload of tears?

Works concerning the studio continue throughout his practice. The artist appears before a blank canvas, performing gestures that alternate between exercise and destruction, holding a brush in one hand and a hammer in the other. Though the brush and hammer may seem worlds apart—like aristocrat and servant—for Kim Eull they are one and the same. In their balance, the work comes into being.

Though his works depict the studio as a distant, arduous destination, it may be revealed—almost as a secret—that his actual studio occupies the first floor of his home in Yongin, with the second floor serving as living quarters. Of course, this house, too, was built by Kim Eull himself, hammer in hand.

References

• [비평] 이윤희의 작가들의 별난 아틀리에: 김을 작가는 목숨을 걸고 작업실에 간다
  [Critique] Lee Yoon Hee’s Unusual Artists’ Studios: Kim Eull Goes to His Studio as If Risking His Life