SIM Raejung: Drowsy-head

ARARIO GALLERY Seoul will be hosting SIM Raejung’s solo exhibition Drowsy-head from April 4 to May 13, 2023. Following SIM’s earlier solo exhibition that took place at ARARIO MUSEUM in Space four years ago, the occasion features fourteen new works, including drawings, paintings, and videos in the fourth-floor exhibition space, whereat SIM continues to explore the incompleteness of personal memory and affect within the broader framework of our kind’s life and death.  

The key concept that SIM highlights in Drowsy-head is “drowsy.” As the second in five stages of consciousness, “drowsy” refers to a state of drowsiness in which one tends to be lethargic and slow in responding to external stimuli. The term “narcolepsy,” which describes said state, originates from Greek to depict irresistible drowsiness. SIM’s narcolepsy metaphorically gestures to a fundamental pursuit of humanity’s essential property, pointing to phenomena felt through and in SIM’s own body, such as delirium or unconsciousness.

Based on daily experience, SIM has been unpacking instantaneous feelings and thoughts in the form of drawings. Weaving in her attraction to the topic of ‘life and death’ and the surrounding contexts after witnessing the event of death, in particular, SIM foregrounds human nature and its abyss as varied causes in her narratives. Intricately entangled with her visceral imagination and fractured reality, SIM’s signature techniques of repetitive patterns, fragmented and disruptive lines, and expressionist brush strokes have developed into a series of drawings and animation.

Whereas her previous exhibition foregrounded dark imageries and works that capture her encounters with murder cases in the course of research, such as homicide, body mutilation, and cannibalism, the works in Drowsy-head accentuate the contrast between bright primary colors and monochrome hues as translations of primal sensations to command the fourth-floor exhibition space. Also, by trying her hand at painting, SIM ventures into new territory in an attempt to expand her formative world alongside mediatory experimentation. “Drowsy-head” comes from the last line in French poet Jean Arthur Rimbaud’s poem “Dawn.” SIM presents the time and space of “noon” as a conceptual metaphor whereat the awakened world and unconscious self come together to cross paths.  

SIM Raejung has held solo exhibitions at ARARIO MUSEUM in SPACE (2019, Seoul, Korea) and Art Space Hue (2016, Paju, Korea). Also, she has presented her works at a number of group exhibitions and events, including Songeun (2021, Seoul, Korea), Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art (2021, Ansan, Korea), ARARIO GALLERY Cheonan (2021, Cheonan, Korea), Artbelt Soje (2020, Daejeon, Korea), Kyobo Art Space (2019, Seoul, Korea), ARARIO GALLERY Ryse Hotel (2018, Seoul, Korea), and ARARIO MUSEUM in SPACE (2017, Seoul, Korea).