Senior Exhibition artist Jee Hye Kim ’12
“Growth Operation” (detail) from the 2011 series “Genius Water Drinker” by Jee Hye Kim ’12. Oil and colored pencil on canvas.
Kim of Fort Lee, N.J., makes paintings and collages that depict imaginary worlds inspired by running water.
For her, water symbolizes past — pumping spring water in her native Korea and crossing the Pacific to the U.S. — as well as present. “I started thinking about fluidity while still getting used to my identity as a Korean-American,” she says. “Having a dual identity meant that I had to alter my mode of thinking, often according to social circumstances.”