Photographer #377: Hein-Kuhn Oh

Hein-Kuhn Oh, 1963, South-Korea, received a B.A. from Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara and an M.F.A. at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. His career started as a documentary photographer capturing the social landscapes on the streets. However in the last decade he concentrated on documenting specific groups of people that present a certain type of convention created by the Korean society. His series Ajumma contains a large selection of portraits that show middle-aged Korean women. In 2001 he started the Girl's Act series which consists of images of high school girls photographed between 2001 and 2004 and a series called Cosmetic Girls that he worked on between 2005 and 2009. For Cosmetic Girls he portrayed girls wearing make-up that he met on the streets, intrigued by the duality in the Korean society of the 'subject and object of desire'. The project deals with the common notions and stereotypes that are influenced by the entertainment media in Korean society. Hein-Kuhn has released four monographs and exhibited his work at a large number of venues around the globe. The following images come from the series Cosmetic Girls, Girl's Act: Highschool Girls and Ajumma.

Website: www.heinkuhnoh.com