Kim Yesol
Yesol Kim (1999) is a sculptor, DJ and Influencer and the creator of Yesol-bot ceramic robots.
Yesol Kim’s practice is centered around ceramic sculpture and the image of the toy robot. Through this medium, the artist explores the visual culture of an entire generation that grew up in South Korea during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
“I am interested in how the most ordinary everyday objects become carriers of collective memory.”
The robot was one of the most recognizable images of South Korea’s popular visual culture at the turn of the millennium. It became an integral part of the visual language of the time, appearing in toys, cartoons, comics, advertisements, and even in elements of the urban landscape. “For me, the robot is neither a character nor a symbol of a technological future, but a form through which I explore memory, identity, and the passage of time. I am not interested in reproducing recognizable toys; rather, I explore the cultural codes they embody.”
Mass-produced objects are rarely recognized as a significant part of an era’s cultural heritage, even though they play a fundamental role in capturing its context and shaping the experience of a generation. Through her work, Yesol seeks to monumentalize these images, transforming personal and collective memory into sculptural form.
By translating familiar forms into ceramics, the artist changes their status: the temporary becomes lasting, the mass-produced becomes unique, and the everyday becomes a subject of artistic inquiry.
“In my ceramic practice, I strive for an almost factory-perfect surface, creating the illusion of plastic. I deliberately work against the inherent nature of the material, traditionally associated with visible traces of the maker's hand and tactile surface qualities. I am interested in the tension between these opposing states: unique sculpture and serial object, craftsmanship and industrial production, the permanence of ceramics and the ephemerality of the plastic toy.”
Each series focuses on a distinct layer of everyday culture — from districts of Seoul and children's street games to other elements of daily life. “I am interested not only in personal nostalgia, but also in preserving the visual language of my generation and the images through which both its identity and my own were formed.”
No series in Yesol Kim’s practice is considered complete; each remains an open-ended process of exploration and reflection. Every sculpture is unique, yet the artist deliberately leaves room to revisit existing works, reinterpret them, and expand them through new iterations that reflect changes in her own perspective on the subject of her research.
SELECTED PROJECTS:
2024 — Fair |catalog| December, a—s—t—r—a gallery, Moscow, Russia
2024 — Fair blazar, a—s—t—r—a gallery, Moscow, Russia
