Kim Jung-Man is South Korea's most respected photographer. However, throughout much of his highly successful 30-year career, he also had to come to grips with feelings of isolation, continually fighting with himself and trying to make sense of his surroundings.
But rather than let those emotions weigh him down, Kim Jung-man’s endless curiosity -- always challenging the unknown, the seemingly unreachable -- has made him the extremely successful and highly sought after artist he is today.
Restless upbringing
Born in 1954, Kim was raised for a large part of his youth in the rural outskirts of Burkina Faso, West Africa, where his father worked as a doctor. Kim often found himself battling with his identity, struggling to find a sense of belonging while he was growing up.
He then moved to France to study art and was recognized as the ‘emerging artist of 1977’ at the Arles International Festival of Photography.
Kim Jung-man has traveled the world trying to quiet the restless nagging inside himself, but soon realized that what he was after was right here in South Korea.
“I grew up in Africa,” Kim says. “And I’ve been all around the world, trekking through deserts and places I never dreamed of. But I soon realized that the beauty I was searching for was not outside my homeland but rather in it.”