‘Untitled - Chicks’
(2019)
Metro Gallery, Melbourne

Steal, Mixed media on Canvas, 140x193cm, 2016
In this series, ‘Untitled- chicks’, Kim Hyunji rejects a level of artistic control often cherished by the artist, instead encouraging models to arrive at their own postures. By redistributing the power of representation, she challenges patriarchal ideas of the body. This act of collaboration is to defy a long-lasting tradition of nude works created and controlled by male artists.
Kim collaborates with a diverse spectrum of people and identities, in an attempt to move away from the predominantly white female body that remains a dominant ideal of western aesthetics. Her work is a passionate effort to dismantle discrimination and unprofessionalism in the Australian creative industry, inspired by her own experiences as a woman of colour.

Ara, Oil on Canvas, 2019
Essay by Julius Killerby

Stefania, Oil on Reflective tint, 95 x 190cm, 2017
By painting on a life size scale and occasionally on
reflective surfaces, Hyunji attempts to illicit a sense of discomfort from her audience.
Rather than seeing the 2D image as part of a world removed from our own, the
figure is instead brought into the audience’s space or vice versa. This effect
is sometimes accentuated by the extension of a subject’s limb through an
artificial frame. The genius of Hyunji’s work is her ability to break the wall
that usually separates the subject from the spectator. In the same way that we
frequently view people through the protective layer of a phone screen, her work
encourages us to engage with the subject matter, not as a voyeur, but as an
active participant.
Lister, Oil on Canvas, 170x215cm, 2018
One of the most compelling pieces in the exhibit is the “double figure” nude portrait of Anthony Lister. The pose is overtly sexualised and perhaps deliberately confronting. Hyunji is perhaps highlighting the way that the gender of a nude form will often determine how it is perceived. Why, you can almost hear her saying, does the male nude shock us when the female doesn’t? She is criticizing, it would seem, the way in which the female body is fetishized and normalised within the Art World specifically, and society generally.
Julius Killerby, 2019

Self Portrait, Oil on Linen, 150 x 200cm, 2019
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Lekhena, Oil on Canvas, 120 x 91cm, 2019

Lekhena, Oil on Canvas, 120 x 91cm, 2019

Atong with her self portrait, Oil on canvas, 100 x 90, 2019



Opening night of ‘Untitled-chicks’, Metro Gallery
captured by Jason Blake
captured by Jason Blake
