Shim Byung-gun's stainless steel works give us a double feeling of unfamiliarity and familiarity. In addition, these works often give us the experience of turning the inside and the outside upside down as if swimming along the base and unknown valleys. It's like the experience of Mobius' belt. This must have come from the cold, hard-feeling material of metal material, which is soft as if it were a piece of soap, and easily crumpled as if it were a piece of paper. This can be said to be due to the sense of disparity that comes from the metallic nature of such a clear stainless steel sheet leaving its existence and transferring it to something else unclear.

 On the viewer's side, this ambiguity is no different from the experience of facing reflections flashing with warping and distortion. The mirrors reflecting each other again, which lead to a mysterious and dim dimension like a kaleidoscope. But it's not a fantasy, it's something that's headed for the awakening to the present.

There is Shim Byung-gun's "play" and the temptation that his "naturality" evokes. He calls it Pressed Drawing, which is an appropriate description in that it was a formative goal to reach as much freedom as drawing.

- Critic Park Eung Joo 

The perpetual vitality in the fold

-On the steel sculptures of Byung-gun Shim -

Gil Heon Suh (Art Critic, Ph.D.,in formative art)

The Korean Peninsula has wrinkled geographical features with numerous mountains and valleys in

which rich stories and unrevealed history are cherished. Jincheon in Chungbuk province, where Byung-

gun Shim’s studio is located is famous for the term "生居鎭川-Living in Jincheon" that boasts a tranquil

scenery of the inland. Around his studio, clustered peaks rise here and there on the fertile plains and

rivers and lakes spread out nearby, making it a microcosm of the curved landscape of the Korean

Peninsula. Sculptor Byung-gun Shim says he wants to aesthetically take root Korean people’s history

and life full of ups and downs through his steel sculptures that embody wrinkles. The bitterness of

life, such as the wounded heart or deep sorrow gained in life, remains in the mind as the remnants of

emotions. Koreans have persistently led their lives, embracing the fateful pains of life through countless

hardships of history. Han (恨, deep resentment), which forms the unique sentiment of the Korean

people, surged as a dynamic energy, even in the midst of slogging life, and became a strong intrinsic

motivation for the lives of Koreans. These emotional resentments are similar to the patterns of shadows

indwelling on the irregularities of the stainless steel, such as the folds of a brain. His works, which reflect

numerous images naturally formed on crumpled steel plates, implicitly capture the curves of emotion,

the source of Koreans' persistent strength. It can be said that the formless rhythm of emotion embracing

vitality and permeating through the valleys is the essence of the sculpture pursued by Shim.

Wrinkles that occur when the surface of the flat steel receives the pressure of the press and

repeats tension and contraction contain many things that cannot be contained in a flat surface.

The physically convex space itself constitutes a myriad of complex volumes. The folds that make up

numerous amorphous three-dimensional spaces reveal a multi-layered landscape by overlapping and

encompassing various spaces. These spaces enclose various expressions inside and out, each reflecting

the delicate emotions accordingly. The language is limited to accurately express the complex emotions

of humans. Even the same emotion is different in color and intensity. The wrinkle that Shim transforms

by borrowing the power of a press on the steel plate forms shadows, and the luster of the surface that

slides like the flow of waves reflects the delicate flow of human emotions like an anamorphic mirror.

The emotions of a person derived from various situations in life sometimes burn like flames, coagulate

with time, form like a knot, and turn into a flexible rhythm of emotions that remain to form a mien

of the heart. Sometimes it meets a certain chance and turns into the joy of life that shines brightly,

sometimes it turns into sadness like a waterfall. This flow of emotions is like a melody of music with a

suitable rhythm of highs and lows. The subtle patterns of wrinkles created by Shim's work remind us of

the reflection of the mind that reveals the flow of emotions that can soar and swirl like waves.

According to Deleuze, the fold is a memory.

This means that the fold is a repository of memories that keeps and records many processes and

stories up to the formation of wrinkles. Therefore, Byung-gun Shim's sentiments of the Korean people's

curved life are similar to the memories of the amplitude contained in the valley of the wrinkles of the

steel that begin to crumple under the pressure of the heavy press moving along the lever he holds

for his work. Since the artist's pure volition and thoughts are transferred to the drawing of the press

along the nerves of the arm, it can be said that the artist's will and imagination are transformed into

the folds of curved steel by the pressure. The effect of gloss and reflection that constantly changes on

the surface reflects the viewer's emotions flexibly like a mirror, but constantly shakes them to distort

them, and reflects them as unknown images without being fixed for any moment. Without even needing

to define what it is, we are confronted with the mysterious map of emotions that its rhythm evokes

and the overall feeling of life it induces. It also transforms the landscape of the everyday world into a

moving one by bringing the surroundings to its still surface. In this way, his work reflects the landscape

created by unstoppable images of countless intensity that are not hastily defined, and at the same time

indicates the persistent flow of inner emotions, which is the source of the vitality of Koreans, with the

formative language of curved folds.