Woojin Kim

My childhood dream was to become a zookeeper. I started my career as an artist by chance, and now I aspire to realise a dream I couldn’t achieve in the past by sharing emotional stories, such as dreams and hopes I had to let go of because of my environment and complex human relationships. Kim Woojin Kim grew up near a renowned zoo and always had the chance to observe the animals there, but he chose to become an artist instead of a zookeeper. Most of his sculptures depict animals, and deer are his favourites. His sculptures are made of small pieces of different colours - he sees each piece as a cell, like a part of the body. They also symbolise a collection of memories and childhood dreams. He explains that each colour has a different meaning. For instance, the black in his sculpture represents the difficult moments the artist has gone through, so it is placed over other colours. His sculptures resemble pop art — cheerful and devoid of deep meaning — but through them, he seeks to express his life, in which he has been overcoming difficulties and fulfilling his childhood dreams. E-mail.