‘Detached’
— Nix Thérèse
There isn’t always language for dissociation, dysphoria, and the endless complications of having a body that feels separate from your idea of identity, yet a Daehyun Kim illustration will be apt. The complete placidness that extends across the face and/or gestures can balance and complicate the body horror that would otherwise startle.
Many faces sever and flip away from our eye while strings leash them to the body in ‘Detached.’ Yet it doesn’t appear painful because these faces gather together like flyaway paper instead of butchered fat swamped with blood. The stack of faces would fall into one black void if the strings weren’t attached; we only maintain a general slice count through the remaining connections. The hands don’t really grasp, but instead allow the untangled cords to run course. I love the one face that remains separate from its counterparts: its perfect oval shape feels like a freshly shorn petal that hasn’t yet absorbed any dew, while the faces to the left have blended into a warped mountain where each movement affects the next.
This piece always has me imagining the inverse, the strings snapping the faces into the bodyscape like some rewinding cassette, because the detachment feels undone. When will the body exhaust itself? Will the piles of faces become higher than the body itself? What if the strings get tangled or cut, essentially barring you from reconnecting? While these illustrations can be understated, they’re never simple.