Jae Yong Kim: Donut Ever Forget Me

South Korean artist Jae Yong Kim’s installation Donut Ever Forget Me is made up of hundreds of hand-sculpted and intricately painted donuts. Each one is unique, and is topped with a high-gloss glaze. Kim views each of the donuts as a diminutive painting, with their decorated surfaces invoking the paint splatters of Jackson Pollock or the mesmerizing dot patterns of Yayoi Kusama. These labor-intensive pieces, each of which requires multiple firings in the kiln, can take several days to complete. Kim’s use of the ceramic medium and his appropriation of imagery by famous painters is a clever critique of the perceived divide between fine art and craft. By depicting row-after-row of sweet treats, rendered in a brilliant Pop-Art palette, he also explores the global culture of consumerism and invites viewers to consider their own consumption.

Jae Yong Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea, in 1973. He received a BFA in Ceramics and Sculpture from the University of Hartford in Connecticut in 1998, and an MFA in Ceramics from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, in 2001.

Organized by the Boise Art Museum

Sponsored by Bev and George Harad

IMAGE: Jae Yong Kim, Donut Ever Forget Me (installation detail), 2018, ceramic, luster glaze, glaze, and Swarovski crystals, Courtesy of the artist and Lyons Wier Gallery, New York.