Wrap Artist

Bound by her personal history and enveloped in the fabric of her culture, Korean artist Kimsooja explores themes by “wrapping” them in manifold ways. christina ko pulls at a loose thread.

Kimsooja works freely between various art disciplines, straddling analogue and digital, participatory and performance, poetry and anthropology, but to call her a multimedia artist seems a bit reductionist. Common threads run throughout the work – thread, indeed, being the operative word, because much of Kimsooja’s work is connected to and originates from sewing and bottari, a Korean cloth that’s traditionally used for wrapping bundles.

Her artistic practice began in earnest in 1983, while she was in her mid-20s and working mainly in paint. She was making bed sheets with her mother when the need to create, and the methodology with which to do it, came to her in an instant.

“I was about to push the needle in the Korean textile,” she says, “and I had a shocking moment, as if the whole universe was coming through my body and reaching the middle point. That was the moment I discovered, this is it. This is the methodology I could use to convey my ideas of the structure of the world. This was also a healing process at the same time that could question life and art – the whole idea of the self and the canvas connecting. That was the moment I started sewing using old bed covers from my family.”

To understand the significance of bottari in Kimsooja’s work, one needs to comprehend the fabric’s role in Korean society, where women learn needlework as a part of their early education. It’s part of everyday life, and is tied to themes of femininity and necessity, but also linked to ideas of rest and burial, protection and decoration. The colours of bottari often offer symbolic meaning, while the cloth in its entirety can act as a metaphor for Korean tradition.