Multidisciplinary Atlanta artist Crystal Jin Kim transforms mother-of-pearl into works of art

On the “City Lights” series “Speaking of Art,” local artists share insights into their influences, processes and experiences in town. This edition features Atlanta-born filmmaker and visual artist Crystal Jin Kim. A writer and director of her own narrative film projects, Kim also pursues photography, drawing and painting. Still more ways Kim expresses her creativity include the making of functional ceramics, and she incorporates crafting materials like mother of pearl in her art panels. 

Explaining more about her techniques involving mother of pearl, Kim said, “It’s as thin as paper and very brittle, and I cut the mother of pearl into shards with a small blade and place them onto a larger painting. I do it on wood panel. The mother of pearl is also translucent, so I play with layering it over different painted colors, shapes and styles of mark-making. This is inspired by the Korean traditional craft of najeonchilgi, which goes back thousands of years.” The effect in Kim’s contemporary work is a dazzling, opalescent kaleidoscope of color on a panel surface forming natural pathways along which light bends, blends and refracts. 

Crystal Jin Kim has been creating for as long as she can remember, beginning with experimentation in drawing and writing as a child. Developing an interest in photography and filmmaking, Kim pursued a double major in film and art at Northwestern University. After college, Kim moved back to Georgia, and her time at home initiated a new artistic train of thought, sparked by the presence of the material she’d soon master. “I was at home and just thinking about all these different things that are precious to me and objects that I have, and one of which is this small table that sits on the floor that I’ve used since I was a little kid. It’s faux mother of pearl and it’s done in the style of traditional Korean art,” she explained.