Elasticity of Color

Solo Exhibition at Modernism Gallery | May 8 - July 3, 2025

As a youth, I was intrigued by the beauty of the art on display. Set high on the wall above the chalkboard, the twenty-six drawings were unlike anything I'd ever seen growing up in Korea. Learning that the drawings were the alphabet, I was elated, and even more delighted when I learned to draw the letters for myself. When I eventually learned cursive, I was lauded for my beautiful penmanship. It felt like I was drawing. Decades later, handwriting remains central to Kim’s artistic practice, an essential dimension of oil and cold wax paintings that contain layers of inscrutable lettering in conversation with saturated color fields. Each stage of the process is like putting together a kit of parts to tell a story. My paintings are a visual autobiography.