My current research is focusing essentially on exploring my creative manifestations of an ever-ending identity inquiry, “Who am I?” More precisely, I seek to understand how my migratory history, my creative and academic reflections, and my personal recollections have shaped my identity, what defines myself and other individuals.
In this project, I pursue the quest to understand the question of identity by binding the visual into the conceptual with the help of a traditional Korean textile sewing technique called Nubi, whereby two layers of fabric with cotton or Korean traditional mulberry paper are joined together and sewn with silk threads. I used this particular sewing technique, on the visual side, as a vehicle and, on the conceptual side, as a cultural voice. Due to its intricate craftsmanship, the fabric is hand-stitched and the work involves significantl attentiveness, and methodical training that are interpretation of iconographic configurations of my motherland, South Korea.
Using the Nubi sewing technique, I have created manifestations where fabric is behind fabric, colors behind colors, space behind space. I have created limitless, boundless, and dimensionless entities, a personal representation of identity.
About the artist
TeaYoun Kim-Kassor is originally from South Korea where she received her B.F.A. She continued her research in Art Education as the Japanese equivalent of a Fulbright Scholar at Saitama University in Japan where she earned a Master of Arts in Art Education (MAAE). In America, TeaYoun continued her exploration of arts in the terminal degree in visual arts, M.F.A. program at the University of Tennessee. Currently, she is teaching as an Associate Professor of Art at Georgia College and State University in GA, U.S.
TeaYoun has been a very active artist having numerous exhibitions including at the Sungshin Women’s University, Seoul, South Korea, University of South Carolina Beaufort, SC, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia (MOCA), GA, Venice Printmaking Studio in Murano Italy , La Macina di San Cresci in Florence, Italy, Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn, NY, Montana State University Gallery in Bozeman, MT, Maryville College Gallery in Maryville, TN, Black-box Theatre in Milledgeville, GA, Folklore Museum in Sendai, Japan and many more.
Her artwork has been supported by the Folklore Museum in Sendai, Japan, the National Performance Network (supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, and the Nathan Cummings Foundation), CESTA in Tabor, Czech Republic, and Can Serrat in Barcelona, Spain.
