Jukhee Kwon

b. 1981, South Korea

Born in 1981, Incheon, South Korea. Lives and works in Grottaferrata, Italy.

Jukhee Kwon creates works from the printed page quite literally; using abandoned and disused books, she shreds the pages by hand to create magnificent ‘book sculptures’. The sculptures brim with energy, often flowing out of books in the form of cascading waterfalls. Each book, while destroyed, claims a new life and existence through creation. The artist’s series /fromthebooktothespace/ aimed to return the product to its original form - from tree to book, from book to tree; destruction, creation. In her series, Red Presence, she makes reference to her fragmented memories and to her first vivid memory - the colour red. As she cuts each strand, she travels along her memories, the first conscious steps towards the creation of her new life.

Kwon completed her BA Degree in Fine Art at Chung-Ang University, Seoul in 2005 and achieved her Master’s Degree in Book Arts at Camberwell College of Arts, London, in 2012. Kwon first showed at October Gallery in 2013, and the same year the Gallery presented her large-scale installation Arabesque Dream, created from seventeen books, at Abu Dhabi Art Fair. Kwon has presented her work in several exhibitions in the UK, Belgium and France. October Gallery collaborated with Asia House, London to exhibit Kwon’s sculptures in 2014, 2015 and 2019, as part of the Asia House Bagri Foundation Literature Festival. Her works are in private collections as well as the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK.

CV