Erin Hyunhee Kang is an artist based in Boulder, Colorado. Born and raised in Seoul, Korea, Erin moved to the states at age of fifteen. She graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with a bachelor's degree in Fine Art. During her years at RISD, she was selected as a member of European Honors Program to study abroad in Rome, and as an interchange student to continue her fine art studies at Seoul National University in Korea.
After finishing her schools, Erin worked for New Yorker Magazine at Condé Nast as a photograph assistant. Then she moved on to Tapehouse Toons as a member of visual effects team creating The X-Presidents series for Saturday Night Live TV Funhouse, and Disney's Lizzie McGuire series. Even though she had amazing experiences working at fun and fast-paced industries of weekly magazine and broadcast, Erin wanted to focus more on long term narrative design formats. She landed her dream job as a book jacket designer at one of the most respected publishing companies, Penguin Group USA (PGI). She created multiple book covers for award-winning writers at some of the most prestigious imprints in book publishing such as G.P. Putnam Son’s and Riverhead. After many exciting years at PGI, Erin left NYC and settled in Boulder, CO with her growing family. In Boulder, Erin was a high school visual arts teacher at Boulder Valley School District and one of seven artists in the Boulder Creative Collective artist-in-residence program where she worked with collaged images as preliminary sketches for larger body of paintings. She is currently pursuing her Master of Fine Arts Practice at University of Colorado Boulder.
Erin’s freelance clients include Penguin Random House, Boulder Valley School District, Denver Art Museum, and Denver Theatre District & Public Arts. Erin has recently exhibited her work at Artwork Loveland, AKAGallery, Dairy Arts Center, and Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art.
Artist Statement:
My art practice drives from an observed space of diaspora as lived and imagined, as context for identification and struggle, as dependent on both memory and present experience. My artistic interpretation of these spaces become a metaphor for my life and identity that captures the human connection across boundaries. Diasporic space is a reality for minorities like myself but it is most often seen as an unwanted place, that is occupied only through default where there is no other choice. It is a space of constant struggle between processes of diasporic social and cultural inclusion and exclusion. While these fragmented spaces have become a specific container for my traumatic state of diaspora, they are still protected shelters where time stands still, where the presence of my existence can be felt, where I can build a future upon. It is about the orientation of my things, movement, daily routine, memories, culture, imaginations and ritual space for tomorrow. I hope to reflect the marginality that is true to my existence and to transform this space into something positive. I am using my own practice of art making as both experience and tool to reveal how this sense of diasporic transnationalism emerges as visual forms of ‘marginal space’ and how this marginal space can be my new home as a site of belonging, resistance, and healing.