Digital Textile Designer Chae Young Kim
Being a lecturer at Chelsea College of Art and Design I often feel privileged to be amongst so much talent and when it comes to degree shows you can’t help feeling you're witnessing something special with some student final collections, hopeful they may get noticed and they will go on to nurture their talent further in the commercial world. Chae Young Kim, who graduated in summer 08, was a student who I felt was on the cusp of something really exciting in digital textile design with her extraordinary final year project ‘The Smallest Garden’, Urban Camouflage Project . And I was in fact right, ever since graduating Chae has been incredibly busy. Within the first year of her graduation she has exhibited at The London Design Festival, 100% Design, been selected to show at The Cologne Furniture Fair, and has been spotted by renowned architect Zara Hadid. It’s rewarding when a talented student deservedly gets acknowledged. Chae’s work is so original because she pushes the boundaries of digital textile design to create a very new look in printed textiles with her expert use of digital software. Her inspiration is deeply rooted in her unusual childhood in Korea. Growing up in a brand new city, but surrounded by rural countryside made her acutely aware of man and his extreme environments. Her designs are based on the nature studies of plant forms and by using a complex graphic coding program she creates a new way of imaging. The results are remarkable and breath taking. Even though the process is digital you have a real sense the human hand and as Chae quotes a ‘digital emotion’ in her work. The final designs are digitally printed onto the finest silk and further upholstered and stitched to give an added 3D illusion. I am so glad I brought two of her prints at her degree show! http://www.chaeyoungkim.com/thesmallestgarden.html
Posted on 08/05/2009 by Melanie bowles
