Won Ju Lim

Life and work

Education

Lim studied at Woodbury University and Art Center College of Design graduating with a Master of Fine Arts in 1998. Lim works and lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Work

Lim's works explore the various transformations that can occur in the connection between a space and its perception. She uses Plexiglas to create three-dimensional miniaturist landscapes, resulting architectural forms, which are illuminated by image projectors from within. Her mixed media installations immerse the viewer in a world of colors, shadows and light, fantasy and nostalgia. Structures are used simultaneously as screens and light refractive lenses, creating shadows and distorting projections on the walls of the gallery. Works like Ruined Traces (2007), 24 Seconds of Silence (2008), Upside Down Huntington (2005), Upside Down Wilmington (2005), Elysian Field (2001) and Schliemann's Troy (2001) are all examples of such installations. . Lim was invited, in 2011, to take part to the Kunsthalle Detroit Museum's "Light Fiction" Show.

Claudine Isé, lecturer at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, in one of her writings concerning art, futuristic building projects and concepts, has related Lim's Elysian Field to other artists like Dike Blair, Marco Brambilla, Sabine Hornig, Luisa Lambri, Sarah Morris, Deborah Stratman and Amy Wheeler.

Solo exhibitions (selected)

Since her first solo exhibition, "Longing for Wilmington", which took place at the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien Gallery in 2000 (Berlin, Germany), Lim exhibited her work in galleries across the US, Canada, China and Europe. In 2001, the same work was exhibited in Siegen, Germany at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

2002 Vancouver Art Gallery hosted Lim's exhibition "Elysian Field North". In the same year the "California Dreamin’" series were exhibited in Germany at the Galerie Max Hetzler while in the same period Patrick Painter Inc. exhibited two of the artist's works: Elysian Field (2001) and Ruby (2001).

2003 Patrick Painter Inc. exhibited Lim's "Memory Palace" consisting of several mixed media artworks.

2004 The artist exhibited at the Emily Tsingou Gallery (London). During the same year "Memory Palace" artworks were exhibited at the Galerie Max Hetzler.

2005 Patrick Painter Inc. exhibited "New Sculptures", a series of new works all created in 2005: Iodine, Cha Cha, Upside Down And Backwards.. In the same year Lim exhibited "Plastic in Transition" in Madrid at the Pilar Parra and Romero Gallery and at the Center of Contemporary Art also in Spain.

2006 Honolulu Academy of Arts hosted "In Many Things to Come". The exhibition was financed by the American Center Foundation.

2007 During October 6 and November 10, Patrick Painter Inc. was the host of Lim's two simultaneous exhibitions: "Broken Landscape" which featured paintings and mixed media in Plexiglass and "Ruined Traces" which featured mixed media sculptures created using Plexiglas, artificial plants, live plants and video projections).

2008 Lim exhibited a large scale mixed media sculpture, 24 Seconds of Silence, in China at the Contemporary Arts Center. The artwork was created using fourteen pieces of smaller sculptures and five video projectors rendering Beijing's urban landscapes.. In Madrid (Spain), at the Pilar Parra & Romero Galería de Arte, Lim exhibited "Broken Landscape and Other Sad Things", a series of paintings and mixed media sculptures.

2010 Patrick Painter Inc. hosted again simultaneously, between May 8 and June 19, in their East and West Gallery, two of Lim's exhibitions: a new series of "New Works" and the "Baroque Pet Shop".

2011 "Untitled Silence", a video installation, was exhibited at the Jaffe-Friede Gallery of Dartmouth College.

2013 Patrick Painter Inc. exhibited Lim's "Vitrines", a series of mixed media landscape sculptures all placed in various Plexiglas rectangles.

2014 Saint Louis Art Museum hosted the exhibition of "Raycraft Is Dead", an artwork which Lim in an interview stated that "it has to do with the relationship between architecture and occupier".

2015 Lim exhibited "Raycraft Is Dead" at the Yerba Buena Arts Center

2017 Haines Gallery (San Francisco, California) was the host of Lim's exhibition, "Casting".

Recognition

Lim got several grants and awards: Philip Morris Artist Grant in 2000, California CFF for Visual Artists (2004), KAFA for the Visual Arts, Los Angeles, CA (2005), Rockefeller Foundation MAF (2007), CCF, CCI, CA (2014) and C.O.L.A. Individual Artist Fellowship (2016).

Art market

The artist is represented by Patrick Painter Inc. (Los Angeles) and Galerie Max Hetzler.

In 2012 Honolulu Museum of Art represented Clars Auction Gallery the sale of Lim's artwork. Another artwork of the artist, Kiss D7 (2015), was purchased by the Museum of Art fron San Jose and another one, California Dramin’ (2002), was announced, in April 2017, that it will be acquired by the same museum.