“The artist residency Joya: AiR is an inspiring place that provided me with a place to unearth many fresh ideas that awakened new projects. The program offers a setting for transcendent experiences of creativity due to the isolated geographic location and limited access to man-made sources. The place allowed me to move away from materials that I felt comfortable with and gave space for mental malleability when brainstorming new artwork.

Joya: AiR’s architecture and landscape plans are adapted to its geographical environment. The relationship between the residency’s architectural structure and landscape helped me to understand this particular geographical region and encouraged me to explore the surrounding fundamental elements in my artwork: Sun, Soil, Water, and Wind. 

My large-scale Cyanotype pieces constructed with balanced proportions of space and volume. The refinement of its geometric abstraction and the composition of the positive and negative spaces were created with forms, colors, light, as well as the link between art and nature. The two juxtaposed large-scale Cyanotype pieces are joined and oriented in the same subject matter, the transition from a constructed space to the circular and long-lined shape of the agricultural landscape resulting in abstract imagery. While I was creating these new works, I was able to be free from the limits within the conventions of what nature provided me. 

Many thanks to Joya”!

TeaYoun Kim-Kassor

TeaYoun Kim-Kassor is originally from S. Korea where she received her BFA in Fine Arts at Sungshin Women’s University in Seoul. She continued her research in Art Education as the Japanese equivalent of a Fulbright Scholar at Saitama University in Japan where she earned an MAT. In America, TeaYoun continued her exploration of fine arts in the MFA program at the University of Tennessee with a focus on Art Installation. Currently, she is teaching as an Associate Professor of Art at Georgia College & State University in GA. TeaYoun has been a very active artist having numerous exhibitions including at The Embassy of the Republic of Korea, Washington D.C., University of South Carolina Beaufort, SC, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, GA, La Macina di San Cresci, Florence, Italy, Textile Arts Center, Brooklyn, NY, Montana State University Gallery, Bozeman, MT, Maryville College Gallery, Maryville, TN, The Folklore Museum, Sendai, Japan, and CESTA, Tabor, Czech Republic.