Jaeyoung Kim is an artist whose practice revolves around the theme of “the representation of the unconscious.” His work reveals a singular creative methodology that sublimates a unique interplay of sensory deficiency and hyper-sensitivity into a refined aesthetic language.
At the heart of his artistic inquiry lies a rare neurological condition known as Aphantasia—the inability to voluntarily conjure visual imagery in the mind. For Kim, this condition is not a limitation, but rather a point of departure. Though he cannot summon mental images to recall memories, he possesses an extraordinary sensitivity to the subtle gradations of color. This paradox—of visual absence paired with chromatic acuity—breathes a peculiar vitality into his work.
Rejecting the traditional modes of representation, Kim instead weaves together color, sound, and text to evoke memory and inner experience. His canvases become thresholds—portals into the emotional and psychological residue of dreams and unconscious reverie. Rather than offering clear visual forms, his works resist immediate recognition, urging the viewer toward a deeper, more instinctive kind of resonance.
A prime example of this approach can be found in his work FA-5 (Undine). Inspired by the undulating movements of waves and fish, the piece captures not only visual motifs but the acoustic echoes they suggest. These sensorial traces are transcribed onto the canvas as semiotic shapes—forms that speak not in images, but in emotional frequencies. Through this act of translation—from dream and memory to symbolic gesture—Kim constructs a highly personal visual language.
His artistic process closely parallels the psychological technique of free association, wherein spontaneous thoughts and feelings are expressed without censorship. Like a patient revealing the raw material of the unconscious to a therapist, Kim reveals his psyche through color, line, and form. Each painting functions as both psychological document and emotional release.
The compositional elements that emerge—curves, textures, and fields of hue—are complex and abstract, echoing the layered intricacy of human emotion. In this, Kim's work enters into a silent dialogue with that of Mark Rothko’s Multiforms, or even the Platonic inquiries of the Symposium, where emotion and essence take precedence over image and symbol. His works do not point to any fixed referent; instead, they offer a pure, distilled experience of affect and being.
Through this body of work, Kim questions the very role of contemporary art. His “Representation of the Unconscious” series suggests that art is not merely a mirror of reality, but a conduit toward the sublime, toward the essential. It is a form of philosophical witnessing, transcribed through sensory intuition.
Ultimately, Jaeyoung Kim’s practice is a profound inquiry into the nature of image, memory, and feeling—an aesthetic ascent that seeks not form, but essence; not illusion, but truth.
